UCLA 13, Michigan 6 - NCAA Tournament Quotes
May 08, 2009 | Women's Water Polo
May 8, 2009
2009 NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship
College Park, Md. - Eppley Recreation Center
No. 3 UCLA vs. No. 6 Michigan
Postgame Quotes
UCLA head coach Adam Krikorian
on the game
"I was proud of the way we started the first quarter. Clearly that was the key to getting off to a good start. However, I thought we put it into cruise control a little too early. Overall, we knew Michigan was going to be a tough game going into this. Congratulations to Michigan. I give them credit for playing us tough. That's exactly what we expected."
Michigan head coach Matt Anderson
on the game
"It was a solid game. That was a hard-played, aggressive fight. They got three goals as the buzzer was sounding, at the end of the first, at the end of the second, and at the end of the fourth. They got two goals on the goal line that we didn't clear out that they pushed in. But, we did a lot of positives out there. We allowed them to do a lot of things that we knew they were going to do. When it was 9-6, we had a breakaway, one-on-nobody, that we missed. At 10-6, we have a 6-on-5 that we missed. Unfortunately, the last three periods we definitely were able to do what we wanted, but we allowed them to get out in the first period. That's why they are going for their fifth national championship.
"Leah Robertson dominated out there; they could not stop her, which is very good for us. But then we could not stop the bad breaks; the three shots when the clock is going off and a couple on the goal line. When you're an elite program like UCLA, those things go your way. They proved that they're the better team today, but I have no complaints losing to a team like that with the effort we had."
Michigan senior driver Sharayah Hernandez
on Michigan's defense
"Once we started pressing on defense and doing what Matt [Anderson] told us to do, which was press the fly to shut them down, they didn't have anything. Even though they scored, we gave them a hard time. There was a length of time without anyone scoring because we were playing really good defense and they were playing really good defense. But when they scored and they started to break away was when we got away from our defense. There was a lack of intensity and energy like when we played against Hartwick and without that I don't believe we could play our best game."