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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIPSMay 24, 2015Todd GalvinSteve KoudelkaAaron MurphyAustin StewartPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA Tufts – 19 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Lynchburg head coach Steve Koudelka and student‑athletes Austin Stewart, Todd Galvin and Aaron Murphy. Coach, a brief statement. COACH KOUDELKA: First off, I want to say congratulations to Tufts. I thought they played a great game. They had a great year. And back‑to‑back championships is hard to do at any level. So congratulations to Coach Daly and that team. They played great today, I thought. And hats off to our guys. I thought we fought for 60 minutes and sometimes the ball went in for us, and sometimes it didn't. Couldn't be more proud to be the coach of Lynchburg College today. Q. Comment on the change of momentum in the game and what caused that. AARON MURPHY: I think we just didn't have the ball as much. They were possessing the ball better than we were. They were on the offensive end and they just kept scoring. And we couldn't get the ball back. TODD GALVIN: Tufts is known for their momentum. We had it at first we knew we'd get it back eventually. But they controlled the possession more in that game and that was one of our key points going in is control the possession. And I thought they controlled the possession for most of the second half. And that was the difference. AUSTIN STEWART: I think we did a great job coming out, coming out fired early. And it's a game of runs. We've seen that all season. We've seen it every season. Their run was a little stronger than ours and we didn't respond as well as we wish we would have. But they're a great team and they played well. Q. Austin, comment on what they did defensively to challenge you. AUSTIN STEWART: I don't think there's anything specific that they did that we haven't seen all year. Don't get me wrong, they played great defense. They're a great team. I think guys started to force it a little too much at times, just getting frustrated. But it didn't go our way today. Wish it would have, but... Q. Austin, comment on setting the goals scored season record? AUSTIN STEWART: It's not even something I'm concerned with. I just lost the national championship game. That's what I'm going to think about for a little bit. Maybe one day it will hit me. But right now I'm worried about my teammates. Q. Aaron and Todd, comment on how you felt to get off the quick start early? TODD GALVIN: That's always what we want to do. We want to come out swinging, put up goals quick and that's what we started to do at first, and after that we were just trying to control the possession and slow the game down a little bit. AARON MURPHY: Pretty much the same thing. Just really started coming out firing when we did that. Once they were on the run we tried to force it a little bit. We should have just calmed down a little bit and played our game. Q. Todd, comment on how meaningful it's been to get the program to this point? TODD GALVIN: We have a great senior class. To be a part of that has been a great experience for me. I love those guys to death. And it's really going to be hard leaving campus when we get back. But I'll cherish this. This has been the best experience of my life, and I couldn't be happier playing with those guys. Q. Could you describe the relationship you guys had that led to the success. Austin, first. AUSTIN STEWART: These are two of my best friends. We spend every day together, put in extra work together. We're going to miss Todd next year, obviously, but it's been an awesome ride with these two. TODD GALVIN: Austin and Aaron have a great future ahead of them coming up as seniors. They've been so much fun to play with, and I'm going to miss this a lot. AARON MURPHY: Just playing together for two years, you obviously build a chemistry. The fact we can play together and be such good friends, off the field hanging out, just helps it so much more. It's just awesome to play with these two. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach. Q. Talk about the adjustments you made at halftime? COACH KOUDELKA:  You know, what we talked about at halftime was we were down 10‑6 but we thought there were about three goals there that we kind of‑‑ that we knew that we were trying to contain them from getting. One was off the fast‑break goal, off the face‑off. Another was a long‑pole score right on top of the doorstep, and another was kind of a scramble situation. And I mean unfortunately that's kind of what Tufts does. And we tried to practice as much as we could against it all week. So going into halftime, it was really to kind of settle the guys down a little bit because we thought if we could get the ball we could score. That was pretty much proven early in the game. But it was just a matter of their face‑off guy did a great job controlling the tempo after it was 4‑0, and slowly but surely they were able to get on those runs that gave them that four‑goal lead. So really the adjustment‑‑ there wasn't a ton of adjustments going on at halftime just because of the fact we thought, we tried to do some different things on the face‑off just to control how they're beating us and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Q. (Question off mic). COACH KOUDELKA:  One of the things we talked about was running our offense. You know, all week we talked about putting ourselves in a situation just to run our offense. And that was either from playing great defense, winning face‑offs or we were able to control that early part of the game. We thought we could get some pretty good looks. And I think for the most part we did. But the game changes when you're down by two to when you're down by five or six. As you heard these guys say, you press a little bit. That's natural. Especially with time running out. You start to feel it. The air gets a little let out of the balloon a little bit. But I thought early on we got our looks and that was great that we got on them early. Q. Comment on the success this season, how proud you are of the unit. COACH KOUDELKA:  This has been an awesome year. I think we had a great group coming in we felt. We felt like our senior class was a special one coming up. And two and two didn't look too great but I think the guys rallied around each other, got a little closer. And we went on a pretty good run. I think for us, we talked in the locker room about what great people do, what great‑‑ is they take these opportunities we just had and build on them. You can't wait in your life to have negative consequences and try to do something great. The great people are the ones that do great things after having great results. And this has been a great year for Lynchburg College. There's no doubt about it. And our goal is now to build off of this and get better. And that's the challenge we have for the next group of guys coming in. And it will be fun to see how it goes. Because as you saw today, they play the game the right way, they play hard. We didn't stop playing for 60 minutes, I thought. And Tufts was a better team today. Hats off to them. I thought they played great. That was the best team we played all year. And so hats off to them. Q. Comment on the fans, the alumni turnout. COACH KOUDELKA:  It's special. We have a special college. We've got great leadership from our president to our athletic director on down. We're very supportive of each other. We call it more of a community than a college, I think, and that was shown today. We had great support from our alumni and parents and everybody that came out and drove up from Lynchburg and from all over the place. So I thought we represented that group of people very well today. And the support that they had is great. And we were truly appreciative of everything that they did to come out and watch the game today. Q. Comment on Austin setting the goal record and expectations going forward. COACH KOUDELKA:  Austin's gotten better every year. And I expect he will be better next year. I know how hard he works. He loves playing lacrosse. He's a great young man. And he'll take all these opportunities that he had today and this year and build off of that. I thought he had a great year last year as a junior. Obviously having Aaron next to him, and we'll find the third guy to kind of fill that spot, but really he's a great young man and there's no doubt about it that he'll be better next year than he was this year. Q. (Question off mic). COACH KOUDELKA:  I think those two guys are great. I thought they had a great game. Their numbers show it. We tried to do a couple different things to them. And once you have to start putting some more defensive presence on them, maybe sliding to them, doing a couple of the different wrinkles, that opens up other guys that can fill the goal up. And we wanted to get it into a six‑on‑six game. They did beat us in transition a couple times. But part of that is us pressing and doing some different things. But like I said before, this has been a great week for us. You kind of‑‑ you love playing against the best teams. Our schedule is the hardest in the country, statistically, and playing Tufts today was a great, it was a great matchup for our guys. And they're better than us, but I think we're also going to leave this game learning a lot. And I think we'll be better for this game. There's no doubt about it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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