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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIPSMay 26, 2012Kevin CorriganJohn KempSean RogersBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS NOTRE DAME – 5 THE MODERATOR: Welcome. Starting off Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan. Next to him, Sean Rogers, and on the far end, John Kemp. If we could have an opening statement from the head coach and then questions from the audience for the student‑athletes. COACH CORRIGAN: I want to congratulate Loyola. They played well, and I thought they made enough plays and made more plays than we did and deserved to win. I didn't think we played very well. There was no quit in our guys, but we just didn't play well today. Q. Sean, can you talk about what was happening on offense for you guys? There were times when you were cold. Was it hard to find a rhythm like that? SEAN ROGERS: It was. They did a good job on defense today. They really got out and pressed us when we were trying to dodge. We have become accustomed to those runs like that. I think the biggest problem was we didn't shoot well. We've been playing really good offense thus far through the tournament and our shooting was the main reason for that. Today we didn't shoot in the right spots. The goalie played well. He made a couple big saves down the stretch, and I think that's what really hurt us. Q. John, could you talk about Lusby and his success in the game, what makes him such a challenging shooter? JOHN KEMP: He's shown all year he's a great score. I don't know how many he ended up with today, but I knew he found the back of the net a few times. I think they know what they're good at. They have a couple of good shooters. I don't know if Sawyer actually scored, but he had a couple of good looks. Obviously, Lusby started off hot. He was their go‑to guy today, and he got it done. Q. After some long droughts with no scoring, you were able to score back‑to‑back goals twice. What was it they were doing in those long periods that enabled you to score? COACH CORRIGAN: It was almost inevitable that if we were going to score, we were going to score in spurts because we didn't possess the ball well. We weren't patient. We weren't protective in our shots. I think when you take poor shots, you shoot poorly generally, and I thought we settled most of the day for average attempts at the offensive end. We just weren't patient and selective enough. We pride ourselves on working hard and having good possessions, and I don't think we have a bunch of great scorers. That's not who we are as a team. But we have a lot of guys who can score when we play good offense. If we don't score, it's not because a guy had a bad day or didn't shoot the ball. It's generally because we didn't play good offense, and I thought that was the result today. Q. How big was their goal (No Microphone)? COACH CORRIGAN: I don't think that mattered. Quite honestly, if it had been four‑three, they would have been kicking themselves in the pants, 5‑3, didn't make a difference. There were still plays to be made in the second half and we needed to make them. So I don't think that goal is as big as most people are going to think it was. I think 5‑3 was probably more reflective of the play in the game in the first half than four‑three was. Q. (No Microphone) how do you reflect on that (No Microphone)? COACH CORRIGAN: Yeah, I would have thought, honestly, if we could have had that many possessions coming out of the face‑off, that that would have translated into us playing smart, patient offense. When you're getting the ball after every goal, generally that's a calming thing for everybody, and it relaxes everybody. We've had a lot of games this year where we've had people kind of hold the ball on us and stuff like that, so we've gotten used to having the other thing happen to us, which is not getting the ball for long periods and being able to keep our poise. I just don't know that we did a good job of keeping our poise offensively today, even though we were getting the ball on the face‑off. That's a little bit of anomaly to me. I'm not sure why that's true. Q. (No Microphone)? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: A little bit. I think we had good opportunities. We didn't have great ones. As Coach said, I think we settled a little bit, because on a lot of the redodges we had, in the first 30 seconds we'd get a good look, but in a minute you get a great look. In 90 seconds, you'd get a phenomenal look; and I think we tended to settle for the 30‑second looks today. I think that's really what the problem was on offense. Q. Coach, Lusby and Sawyer were the big guys coming in.  What were you trying to do defensively against them? And what did you see from Lusby on such a big day? COACH CORRIGAN: It's a little bit the same as the offense. When somebody has five goals, it's not because we game planned to get them five goals.  It's the same thing defensively. We tried to defend their team. There are a number of things that they do very well. They're very dangerous in transition, and part of that is Lusby and Sawyer are such good shooters that in transition. They get a little time and space, and they're dangerous there. And those guys are really good on the back side. If you notice their offense, one or the other of those guys is on the back side of the field almost. When they can skip the ball and get those opportunities, those guys are going to get the same time and space they get in transition. Just as John said, they're really good shooters. Those are tough saves further to make. We hope to limit those numbers with skips and those kinds of things and be able to rush the shot. And we weren't able to do that as successfully as I want. But you're not going to win many games this time of the year with five goals. I think Notre Dame Lacrosse is a testament to that. Since we sit here for the third year in a row without a trophy, we simply have to do a better job at that end of the field as well. Q. Is the defense that came together there (No Microphone)? SEAN ROGERS: Yeah, they came out with that fairly quick goal. It was like ten seconds in or something. After that second one, I think we kind of came together and kind of knew offensively we're having a little bit of trouble, so we needed to clamp down and stop them. We didn't give up any goals the rest of the game. We were able to get a couple more opportunities late in the game, get a couple takeaways. So we did what we could for the team. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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