Sara Schopper Quotations

Yes, but at least it came. That was important. We kept playing when it would have been easy to quit.

This probably did come a year ahead of schedule. We're young. We're going to learn from this and get better.

She's real quick and she knows how to knock down her free throws.

She had two steals in that quarter for us, and I think that got us the momentum back. We emphasize defense in practice. Those are the things you need to win games.

My girls really wanted it. That's why they kept fighting and fighting.

I didn't want to give them any easy lay ups. We gave them too many easy lay ups the last time we played them (in a 62-58 Galena victory in December).

I felt like there was a lid on the basket.

I thought we did a nice job of pressuring the ball in the second half.

We just couldn't put the ball in the hole in that quarter. We'd have four or five shots on one possession and still couldn't score.

When it comes to crunch-time, this team just goes out and plays its game. That's the greatest thing about them.

We got comfortable with the lead. We kind of let back a little bit. I reminded (the girls) not to let down. We still have a game to finish. We can't get comfortable.

We were giving them easy shots because we were backing off a step, thinking they were going to drive to the basket.

We run an aggressive track. We pressured the ball very well. It made for some easy fast breaks.

The one thing we didn't do well was get defensive rebounds. They just had too many second and third shots.

We weren't getting our hands up in their face.

We did a much better job in the second half. In the first half, they (Reno) got too many second and third shots. We did a much better job in the second half keeping them to one shot.

I've coached a lot of these girls since they were in sixth grade. So they know me. I know them. The transition was real easy.

Offense was the hard part against them. They are just so big. They wouldn't give us the 3-point shot, and that forced us to go inside where they have so much size. It came down to an inside game and we struggled.

That's kind of how we've been all year at the line. We've been in and out all year.

It just came down to who made the most free throws.

It took us about a half before we could figure them out. But once we got a feel for them, we were OK.

They wanted it. I'm not going to lie to you. But we want to come back here next year and do this again. Nobody expected us to be here. It's like I told the girls. Only two teams in the state got to play in this game tonight and we were one of them. That's something to be proud of.

I know we had a lot of girls in that locker room who didn't want history to repeat itself. Nobody said a lot about it but I know they didn't want to see a repeat of what happened last year.

I'm having fun with it. I'm not going to lie. I like having my own team. And the girls are doing a great job.

I just told them to turn and then find the glass. We were too quick at times, rushing things. We'd just turn and chuck, turn and chuck, without finishing our shots.

The girls are responding. They are giving it their all.