Zach Keene Quotations

When we can step on the court, knowing that we've been here before, it's huge. The nerves are always going to be there, but you have that confidence of saying 'hey, we've been here before, we can do it again,' it helps out tremendously.

We're focused, but yet we're still enjoying the moment. No matter how many times you've been there, it's still something special.

We're going in (at halftime) with our heads up and excited, while Macomb was kind of down a little bit. We wanted to come out with that momentum in the second half and I thought we did that.

She's the type of player than can take over a game and not score a point.

I thought we hunkered down and came out and played a lot better in the second half. We've just got to come out ready to play sooner than four minutes into the first quarter. That's just killing us right now.

It got pretty sloppy there at the end, but I thought our girls held on and did a great job.

Our girls stepped up and hit the big shots. When (Macomb) covered up on the outside, we went to the inside. We just had that 1-2 knockout punch whether it was from the outside or the inside. Then if we drove, we stepped it up and hit free throws.

I wasn't really pleased with our press, even though it did slow them down a little bit. We didn't get the turnovers like we normally do off of it.

We came out a little timid, a little tentative. But (against Flanagan) we came out and told (the girls) to relax, have fun and put up your shots. If you miss 12 in a row, put up another one.

We didn't feel like we could get a whole lot of steals, but we wanted to force the issue and try to make conditioning a factor.

We were focused. We came out with a mission that we wanted to take their crowd out of the game - make them a non-factor.

We were flat. I think nerves had a lot to do with it. This was a big game for us. ... No matter how many times these girls have been here before, it's nerve-wracking. We came out a little hesitant, a little shaky. But I thought we overcame that and did a great job.

We got a lot out of this tournament. We got a look at some teams we'll see down the road. We got to play some great basketball teams that we normally don't get to see that are state-ranked.

We weren't ready to play at the start. I've got to give a lot of credit to North Fulton. They're an outstanding ball club and they're well-coached. They're a good basketball team.

Once we got relaxed a little bit, we started playing our style of up-tempo basketball. Shots started to fall and it gave us some confidence.

A lot of people didn't think we'd get here. But we believed from day one that we could get here. ... We did make the top (title) game like we wanted to, but I'm so proud that we did bring home a third place trophy. There's only two teams that finish out with a win and we're one of them.

I've got to give credit to coach (Jim) Cole and the West Central Heat. It's tough to be a first-year consolidation and make it as far as they did. They went through state-ranked teams and played some great basketball to get to this point.

They were two special leaders. I couldn't ask for a better situation coming in for my first year and having two outstanding leaders both on and off the floor. The kids looked to them as our motivational leaders. They are the nicest girls you can have, but they are extremely hard workers and John Wood picked up two extremely good players.