NCAA Tournament: Creighton vs. Northern Illinois Quotes
11/20/2011 5:03:00 PM | Men's Soccer
Elmar Bolowich – Creighton Head Coach, 299th Career Win
“First I
want to say congratulations to Northern Illinois for making it this far
in the NCAA Tournament and winning their conference championship.”
“It was a very competitive game. We had the advantage going into halftime with the 2-0 lead, which made us a little more
comfortable and then finally were able to put the game away shortly before the end.”
“I didn't expect to struggle against their defensive side, but I felt there is a certain way to attack a team like that. They
weren't so defensive; I expected them to be a little more than they showed. They brought their line up in the first half and I thought we struggled with that because we played too much
in front of their back four instead of getting behind their back four. It required forward runs from our deeper players but we didn't see that in the first half.”
“We cannot just attribute our defense on our four defenders, but it goes through the entire team. When
we lose the ball
you see how hard Ethan (Finlay) is working to put pressure on the other players
and then guys underneath Choco (Jose Gomez) and Bruno (Castro) – how hard they work to get the
ball back. It makes it very difficult for
other teams to get in a comfortable rhythm.”
Senior Ethan Finlay – Creighton forward; Scored twice, has five goals in last three NCAA Tournament matches
“We concentrated on set pieces and making the best of them. Bruno played a nice ball off the back post and Jake Brown got
on the end of it. I was just kind of 'Johnny-on-the-spot' there and put the ball away.”
“We have
guys that are very comfortable on the ball, with Bruno and Choco and
Ribas coming in, so we are very comfortable on the ball and I think
today we had some great movement on the ball.
Coming into the game we did talk
about how they might be tight in the middle and how we can combine 1-2's
on the top of the box and we did that but we will have to continue to
do that to break defenses down.
It was another good performance by our defenses.”
“It's exciting [to advance and have another home game]. We set ourselves up in a really good position being the 2 seed but
we are taking it one game at a time. It
will either Providence or Santa Barbara – we played Providence earlier
this year and had a good result and played Santa Barbara last year so it
doesn't necessarily matter the opponent. We had a great turnout of fans – kind of our 12th man.
So we just keep going and prepare this week for whoever comes here on Sunday.”
Senior Brian Holt – Creighton goalkeeper, 42nd career shutout, 55th career win
“Some
games like today are tough because you don't see the ball a lot, so you
have to stay organized and stay in tune with the game and make sure you
are communicating well with the back four.
They did a great job in keeping control of the ball and making my job easy.”
Eric Luzzi – Northern Illinois Head Coach
“To be fair, Creighton was the best team we have played in a long time, that is including Akron. They are in our conference
and we play them once, sometimes twice a year. That team that we just played, on both sides of the ball, is about as good a team as I have seen in the last couple years.”
“They [Creighton] are the complete package. On the ball, very, very comfortable in possession.
They don't lose the ball easily or cheaply, the angles they create are good and technically they are very sharp. But on the flip side, defensively,
they work very hard. Anything we were not able to do today was more down to them not allowing us to do it than us not being able to. We
train
a lot with our guys when they lose it [the ball] to try and work hard
to win it right back and we are pretty good at it, for the most part. But the way Creighton re-pressured us
after they lost the ball made it very difficult for us to get it off our half. They are very good on the ball, very committed off the ball."
“We have had Akron, we've played the last two Akron teams that went to the College Cup. Akron has had some special pieces
in the last couple years, but these guys, collectively as a unit, when they play they don't make a lot of mistakes. When they get flowing, they are hard to stop.”
“Obviously
it doesn't feel like it right now, but when we look back on the season
the guys had – this is what we set out to do three years ago. It
isn't
easy to get a team in the NCAA Tournament and now our expectation is,
moving forward we are going to be an NCAA team every year. When we remove
ourselves a couple days away from
the sting of this one, this will be a season that everyone in our
program and I will remember a long time because it is going to set the
standard for our program."
Sophomore James Stevenson – Northern Illinois forward
“Obviously
we want to try and make a game as even as possible, and try and play
our game, but when you are playing against a team that passed the ball
so well it feels like you are chasing shadows
some of the time and it gets frustrating. You just have to work harder to try and play our strengths. Credit
to Creighton they didn't allow us to play our game. I
feel they are the best team we have played all season, so it was almost
a case of trying to gain experience than to get the result.”
Players Mentioned
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