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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP

May 26, 2019

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Cabrini - 16, Amherst - 12

THE MODERATOR: First and foremost, congratulations to Cabrini. Their first national title for any sport in program history. We're joined by head coach Steve Colfer and student-athletes Tommy DeLuca and Kyle Tucker. We will take questions for our student-athletes after a brief opening statement by Coach, and then we will dismiss the student-athletes and take questions for Coach. Coach Colfer?

STEVE COLFER: First off, congratulations to Amherst. Tremendous season, tremendous game. That game was hard fought from top to bottom. They are, I said this week, couple times when I was interviewed, they are as worthy of a championship as us. They had a tremendous season. They're tremendously well coached by Jon Thompson. They threw a lot at us and we were lucky and our kids persevered and made a couple more plays there in the second half. It was a great lacrosse game and, again, congratulations to Amherst for a great season.

Obviously for our guys, it's an unbelievable opportunity to play on this stage, to have an opportunity to compete against some of the best teams in the country and ultimately to come out with a team that is able to hoist the championship. It's special for our university, it's special for our athletic department, and it's obviously special for our lacrosse program. And when I got a chance to see some of the alums in the stands, you can't be somewhere for 23 years and 19 years as a head coach and not think that this isn't -- this is every bit a part of their championship, because they built the foundation for this program. They are the reason why we're here today. These guys finished it off for them, but without those guys, we're not here today.

So this trophy belongs to everyone in that fan base and everyone around the world basically that has had a connection to our university and to our lacrosse program over the years.

Q. Kyle, any point in this game where -- you guys were back and forth with Amherst, and Amherst took the early lead, but you guys fought your way back, Philly tough, whatever. Was there a point where something clicked for you guys and you finally found a way to, you know, get through Amherst?
KYLE TUCKER: Well, you know, in the first half we were feeling shaky, of course, but we were confident because the score was tied. Then we knew that we were better in the second half when it comes to offense. We feel more connections and spacing within our team and we were able to do that come third quarter, and it worked all the way through to the end.

Q. Tommy, can you talk about trying to minimize Wolf today and how well you guys think you did with that?
TOMMY DeLUCA: Yes, definitely since beating Salisbury last Sunday, the big thing the entire week was Evan Wolf. We knew how good he was, and then on Friday him getting Attack Man and Player of the Year kind of made it more nerve-wracking. I don't know if the guys believe in me that much or they were just lying to my face, but it seemed like I was the only one that was nervous about it. All the guys told me I just had to play my game, and I think I did.

One thing we focus on on defense is trust, and I knew that the five guys behind me and our goalie Riley was going to make saves, and that's all we did, and I don't think he really did much.

Q. What does it mean to be part of the first team to bring a championship to the program?
KYLE TUCKER: It's an unreal feeling. I didn't have words to describe it when I was out on the field. All I could do is put my hands on my head and think about how unbelievable this experience is. I'm glad I got in touch with Coach Steve Colfer a couple of years ago.

STEVE COLFER: Me too.

KYLE TUCKER: It's unreal. I still can't believe what happened.

Q. Kyle, when you guys get rolling late in that third quarter, end of the fourth quarter, I guess it's similar to late against Salisbury. Do you guys have the expectation or know that if you go through the process and you work that that kind of stretch is waiting for you guys at the end of the game?
KYLE TUCKER: I mean, yeah, definitely. Like I said, when it comes to the third quarter we feel like nobody can run with us, and once we started clicking we knew shots were going to go. We make sure we stay on each other to never put our foot off the pedal and just keep pushing down no matter what it takes.

Q. Coach, Timmy Brooks, game-winning goal. How special is that from Timmy?
STEVE COLFER: It's unbelievable. It's the thing that movies are written about. When he got hurt down in Hampden Sydney in late February and broke his collarbone and basically had to be sent home in a van because he couldn't take the bus ride home, and to see him the next day in agony, literally agony for the next three weeks, he couldn't move, he was incapacitated, couldn't eat, everything was just miserable. But I remember that morning when we got back and we got in the office because we were on spring break and we had to get ready for a really good Dickinson team, I went into my AD's office and I just said, this is not how it ends.

There is no way that this kid has been through this much in life, battled back, to have someone in a doctor's office tell him that his lacrosse career was over. And when I said that, I had no idea that this would be the outcome. I wish I did; I would have played the lottery a few times between then and tonight.

Literally is -- I'm sure maybe all of you saw his story that went kind of viral this week and to have him -- literally last night we're at team dinner, at a team dinner on a Saturday night at 7:30, and his surgeon calls, and I don't know -- I'm assuming he was aware, but he said I've been meaning to call you the last couple of days, you're fully cleared to play. We were just using him on man up, because they wouldn't clear him for full contact, and he calls him last night at dinner and he said yeah, you're fully cleared to play.

And then to have Jake Klein, who is an All-American go down literally on the first play of the game, with a broken ankle or something, and to have to look at Timmy and say, put me in, I'm ready to go, and to have him score those goals, it's unbelievable. It's beyond unbelievable to me. It's such a special situation and one that I couldn't be more proud to be a part of in any way.

He deserves every second of this, every second of this. He put himself in a bad spot in life, but he dug himself out, and this country was founded on second chances and redemption, and I'm a big believer in that and always will be.

Q. You mentioned Timmy and everything that brought him there, but also guys like Kevin Leyden and Nick Vass, is there something about this program that allows these guys to have their second lives in lacrosse?
STEVE COLFER: As a program, we were never getting the first looks of guys. We were always having to kind of dig and find and listen and keep our ears open, and when we would hear local guys who may be coming home for one reason or another, didn't work out at school A, or college football didn't work out but we knew he was a darn good athlete, we hunted those guys down, and we were persistent in that.

And all the guys that have worked with me on the coaching staff to get to this point, you darn well better have guys like that. You can't sit behind your desk and wait for the good players to show up. You've gotta go find them. And we weren't a first-choice destination, and I don't know if we every will be, even though we just won a national championship.

We have the underdog mentality, and we find guys that that appeals to and I sell. I'm not going to lie, I sell it. But what I sell is the fact that, hey, you're going to come here and get an opportunity to get a top-rated education, you're going to be part of something that's bigger than yourself, and you're going to have friends and brothers for the rest of your life.

I told these guys the other night, I gave my postgame speech three days ago, because I said in that locker room you're not going to hear me. We're either going to be celebrating a national championship, which we are, or we're going to be suffering the agony of defeat, and whatever I say in that moment, you're not going to hear me. And I tried to explain to them what unconditional is. If they win, I don't love them more; if they lose, I don't love them less, much the same as we have our children in our lives, and those types of things, and I really tried to connect with them on that and make sure that they understood it.

I think they heard me in those moments because they thought we were coming in to talk about dinner that night, probably, you know what I mean, and they got walloped with that. But going back to Timmy Brooks, he sent me a text that night. I'm laying in bed and he said, hey, great job today. Keep doing what you're doing. . . It's working. If you know Timmy, that's 1000% him. I couldn't be happier.

Q. Coach, you mentioned winning the first national title for your program, but also as a larger aspect for me, a Philly guy myself, I think it's the first Philly men's lacrosse team Divisions I, II or II, to win a national title. For that, what does it mean? You've been here for 19 years at the program. What does it mean to put Cabrini on the map and what does it mean for Philly lacrosse in general?
STEVE COLFER: It's crazy. There are so many great coaches in this city at the high school level, you know, at the college level, at the youth level. I grew up in West Chester and started playing youth lacrosse there and after college came back to this area and played in summer leagues and men's leagues and got coaching at Cabrini and have been mentored by so many of these guys. And to be able to do something like that, it's unreal. It's a tribute to all those guys. I learn, I try to really work at this, and if someone is talking about lacrosse, I'm going to go listen.

Some of the greatest minds in the lacrosse world are right in this area. So hopefully they can take a piece of this, you know what I mean? I was talking to Jon Thompson before the game about this, and I always love when first-time programs got to this game which Jon did and we did, and I always took the time to email that coach, win or lose, and congratulate them on a great year and feat, because I was happy that day because it was -- to me, it allowed us to know that we could do it, too, that we weren't just banging our head against the wall.

And, you know, to see teams break through and to get to this championship weekend is huge, and then to ultimately get a national championship is huge. So if there's anyone out there thinking, I don't know if we're doing it right, if we're recruiting the right kids, I don't know if I have the right support. You gotta be persistent. You gotta plant your flag somewhere in life and work hard around it, and I really believe if you do that the potential is there for you in your program. Hopefully all those guys in Philly own a little piece of this, because it's, you know, it's special to do that.

Q. Can you discuss how your team responded to the slow start you guys had in the first quarter?
STEVE COLFER: Yeah, I mean, it's happened to us throughout the course of the year. We've responded, you know, in different ways. It happened to us in a York game in the quarter finals, we were down 5-1 at halftime, but we were getting good looks and we didn't to have to revamp anything, we didn't ave to scream and yell, we just had to shoot the ball better. Being down, I think we were down 2-0. We weren't worried with this group. This group of seniors is unbelievable. I have learned from them so much from them, their perseverance from injury, through life situations, through, you know whatever has been thrown at them, they have persevered.

When you have good leadership like that, you don't have to hit the panic button. You don't have to call timeout and grab guys' attention try to win -- they were well aware that they were playing in Lincoln Financial Field for a national championship. We didn't have to remind them of that, they needed to calm themselves a little bit, and give Amherst credit. They were really good, you know what I mean?

Their kids caught the ball, shot the ball and got a couple past Riley, but at that point we weren't worried. We needed a couple of saves here and there, you know what I mean? I kept going to Coach Garling and walked down and say, listen, we need a stop here, you know what I mean? You can feel the momentum shift back and forth. We try to use our timeouts strategically, but sometimes defensive stops and saves are huge. Let's you save that timeout, let you get the ball down and lets our highly-skilled offensive players go to work, and we did get some timely stops there, so credit to Coach Garling and his staff.

Q. Obviously the win is a little more sweeter considering the fact that you're at the Linc. A lot of Philly guys with a bunch of people from Delco coming down. How sweet was that?
STEVE COLFER: It was unbelievable. And I knew we were in a good spot yesterday, when -- and I didn't realize the section when we went to the banquet on Friday night. They said okay after the Fanfest, you're going to go in and your teams will be sitting in Section 108. That's where we have reserved for the DIII teams to watch the DI game. And I go to my seat and I'm sitting there and I turn and I said, oh my God, I got a really eerie feeling right now, and they said why? One row in front, three seats down is the seat I sat in to watch the Eagles beat the Vikings to go to the Super Bowl in 2017.

I mean, eerie. And I had just told Jason Kelce that out on the field. He is a big supporter of Cabrini lacrosse. His wife went to Cabrini and she worked in our athletic department for a number of years, and Kelce has been around our guys, spoken to the guys and is good friends with a bunch of guys on our team, and I told him that and he was laughing, and he said, that's a pretty good omen, that's a pretty good omen.

And I also told him as I'm walking way, okay now the ball is back in your court. The Eagles have to go back and get us another Super Bowl next year, and he looked at me and laughed, but he didn't say no.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. Congratulations.

STEVE COLFER: Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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