Dec. 4, 2004
NCAA Women’s Soccer Pre-Championship Game Press Conference (Dec. 4, 2004)
Notre Dame Head Coach Randy Waldrum
“We’re just extremely excited to be playing for the championship and I know it’s going to be a great game. We’ve got a lot of respect for Jill (Ellis) and UCLA and I know it should be a good game and we are excited about it.”
“We don’t have a lot of information on them because with them being from the west coast we don’t see them as often as we do Santa Clara and Stanford. We’ll be breaking that down a bit this afternoon and taking a look and get with the team tonight to try and put together some type of gameplan.”
“With the conference that we are in, it seems like we see one or two key (forwards) with every team we play. (UCLA) clearly have great pace and they are an athletic team but I think we are, too, so it should be an interesting battle.”
“From what I saw yesterday, the system that they play in the way that Jill has it structured. Defensively, they look very solid in goal. The back four look to be very organized and they seem to keep their defense tight and squeezed in the back and it’s difficult to break down. They don’t give up and concede a lot of space behind. You can tell they are a well-coached team.”
“With a Friday-Sunday schedule, you are kind of used to it as the year goes on. To be real honest with you, we won’t change much that we do just for one game. We’ve felt it’s more about us and doing the things that we do well and we’ll kind of stick to that because that’s how we’ve been most of the year.”
“The only thing that we really talk about is the legacy that those players (from the 1995 championship team) have left the program. That’s kind of the foundation of Notre Dame soccer and all of us are so proud of those alums and a lot of them were in the stands yesterday. I think the good thing to see about it is that there isn’t any kind of jealousy amongst the teams. They were out supporting as loud as any body. I think the challenge I put to these guys at the beginning of the year was for them to set their own legacy: let’s just not continue to talk about ’95, let’s set our own legacy and at the end of the year we’ll see how that goes.”
“(Susan Pinnick) is doing great. She actually got released from the doctors just this week. She’s released to practice again. The only thing we have to clear now with our medical staff to just see her, because they haven’t had a chance to do that yet with us coming here. I think she’s good to go and she looks great. She’s been out at training all year and trying to stay a part of the team as much as she can and she’s here on the trip.”
Notre Dame Junior Forward Katie Thorlakson
“I don’t think (the Hermann Trophy) has a bearing on anything. It’s just an award and who knows if I’ll even get it. I’m not focusing on that at all, I’m just looking forward to tomorrow’s game.”
“All of the games kind of mesh in, every weekend you play. It’s hard to look back. Seven games ago, I don’t even remember. We’re just focused on the one game ahead and that’s been our focus all season. I haven’t really looked back at it, but maybe I will a couple weeks from now.”
“Our gameplan is just to follow what we do best. I don’t even know much about UCLA yet, I’m just ready for tonight whatever the coaches are going to tell us and then just go out and play.”
“The seniors bring so much leadership to our team that it’s hard not to follow them. Melissa and `Gunna’ have so much experience that it just rubs off on everyone else and you just want to play better for them, if nothing else.”
Christie Shaner
“I would say that Melissa Tancredi and `Gunna’ provide a lot of leadership in the back. The way that they play in the game is going to dictate how the rest of the team is going to play, because of the presence they are going to have on the field. They have such strong personalities on the field that it allows us get up and down the flanks a lot, myself and Kim Lorenzen. We can rely on them to hold down the fort.”
“You look at (Tancredi) and not only is she a physical and aggressive presence on the field, but even off the field she’s quite a character. They both complement each other very well. `Gunna’ is very quick and she is also a great leader on the field.”
“I do like getting forward on the flanks, there is more room to run and it also allows us to get some service into the box. When we get up field we can get those crosses off and hopefully get the ball on the foot of one of our forwards.”
“We’ve been getting a lot of support from the students. I called home yesterday to my roommate and she made the comment that everyone was doing a game-watch on the women’s soccer team and that one of the main buildings on campus was just packed with people and you could barely even walk in there because everyone was watching that game on TV. To hear that is really exciting.”
“The seniors do make us want to become better players. They bring a `want-to’ the table and we want to work hard for them and we definitely not only want to win a national championship for ourselves but we want to do it so they leave on a good note.”