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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIPSMay 27, 2012Tim BoyleVito DeMolaBrendan HayesLouis RileyBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Dowling – 11 THE MODERATOR: Coach Boyle, Brendan Hayes, Louis Riley, and Vito DeMola. We'll start off with an opening statement from coach, and take questions for the student‑athletes. Coach, an opening statement? COACH BOYLE: Thank you. I'm just really happy and honored to be in this position right now. I'd like to thank our institution and our administration. Our family, our alumni. All the boy it's a good job and felt like a home atmosphere out there. So I can't appreciate the fans enough. They were really there for us. We've had a selfless attitude all year long, and that's really what got us to this point. We had to believe, commit, and follow‑through philosophy, and today that's what happened. Limestone is an amazing team. Coach Clarke does a great job. They're very dangerous. We knew we'd have to weather some storms. We kind of had a feeling that last time we played them, we didn't give them our best. So we're excited to be in this position, excited to be National Championship, and I'm just really proud and amazed at this day. Q. Coach, you guys suffered two losses this year and came back to avenge both of those losses. How sweet is it to avenge the second one in the national title game? COACH BOYLE: It's hard to even put it in words. It's all we've talked about since may 6th. That day was hard. It was our senior day. Then we had a really bad game and lost by eight. We thought we were out of the playoffs, then four hours later, we're all very low, and sure enough a little luck. A little fate, maybe, and we're in the playoffs. So now we get to sit down and say to ourselves, hey, now we get an opportunity to make up for some mistakes that we made during the year. Then we go out to Erie, and the kids respond all week long of practice, all two weeks. They get to work and really believe in the philosophy of the system, and we go out there and take a win in a place that's really difficult to win. So we were able to avenge one loss, and sure enough, we get the opportunity to find out who wins and get the opportunity to avenge another loss. All we talked about all week long is you don't get these opportunities in life. From here on in, you might not make up for any mistakes. You get the opportunity to make up for two in the same season. So it really was an amazing feeling to be able to do it this way and to be able to come back and win two games against team that's we lost to during the season, you can't write that. Q. Louis and Brendan, would you talk about Vito and the game he had today? BRENDAN HAYES: Vito is a special, talented player. He's our main threat on offense. He really stepped up today and helped us a lot. We needed that goal, find a little run there late, and we turn to Vito in a sense, and Vito stepped up to the plate and delivered. LOUIS RILEY: Yeah, just like he said. Vito is one of our best players on offense. I consider him to be one of our go‑to guys on offense. Whenever I'm in trouble or need someone to have the ball or make a big goal for us, I look to Vito because I know he's going to perform for us. Q. Did all of you play against each other in high school? Were you all rivals? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: Played against Hayes. I'm a little bit older. I don't know if we played against each other. STUDENT‑ATHLETE: I was more of a baseball player in spring. I wasn't into lacrosse that much. STUDENT‑ATHLETE: Until you won the National Championship about 20 minutes ago. I didn't even like the sport. Q. Vito, would you talk about your game today? VITO DeMOLA: It really hit us yesterday. We were on the bus coming home from dinner, and the team started singing some songs on the bus. We were in like this upbeat mood. Everybody was going crazy, and coach handed us these letters from our parents and the team went from singing Sweet Caroline to crying. We were all sitting around and that's when it hit us that we had something special ahead of us today and we had a backing the way we did. When we walked out for our pregame warm‑ups it was pretty empty. We went back in the Locker room, and came out for game time. You saw the atmosphere, the people who cared about us. We were with the people, two out of three people that were toughest on me on the team, one is to my right and one is to my left. We had a game plan. Like we said, everybody had each other's backs, and I just tried to do my part everybody stood up and called out one person's name and said I have your back. And the first guy I said was Hayes, because this guy rides me in practice, man. He's on me every day. Do this, do that. I was glad I was able to come through for him, and I appreciate everything they've done for me. BRENDAN HAYES: I only do it because I see a lot of potential in you. Q. Vito, can you talk a little about Coach Clarke said they were focusing on your first midfield line. So they were able to slow that down and you were able to take over the game from that point. What made you think of that? Is that kind of how you saw where you saw the midfield struggling a little bit, and you clicked in and made some plays? VITO DeMOLA: Yeah, we run a limited number of middies, so not that they were necessarily struggling skill‑wise or match‑up wise. Maybe it's hot out and stamina‑wise, so I figured let's take the ball down to the attack side. Because our offense runs on our midfielders and we rely on them a lot. So we took the ball below the GLE a little bit, and tried to hold on to it and get them a break ask get their legs back under them. When we saw opportunities, we took them. The ball went through, crossed that line, hit that net, and I don't care who does it for us. Q. Can you explain the commotion of the celebration, because it looked like you went hay wire there. Then you had to gather yourself and shake hands. Like the trophy magically appeared, so what exactly happened in that situation as the game closed out? THE MODERATOR: We'll go right down the line, Vito. VITO DeMOLA: This is something I've seen Syracuse do a couple times on TV. I've seen Post do it. And I always had a plan of I'm going to do this if we win a National Championship. I'm going to run and kiss the trophy and run around with the flag. As soon as that buzzer went off or the horn went off, I didn't know what to do. I was like where's our goalie, where's our face‑off guy? Who is kissing me on the cheek? It's a relief because all those days with coaches and guys in practice around your back, when something's not going, and you can't catch one day and you're like what is wrong with me, it all comes it up right here. There is nothing I would trade, not one moment in my career that I wish I could change, because in the end it's something we've all been dreaming about since we were little I kids. BRENDAN HAYES: It's hard to put words because of the emotions that ran through myself and my teammates. I just ran to my goalie because Ryan Mayeda is the anchor on our team. It hasn't hit me yet that we're national champions. There are far and few who can say that, really. I can carry that on for my life. Whenever I see these guys in town or wherever I am, we share a special moment that we did today. Q. Vito, he's a basketball player, but weren't you a football player and something about Jujitsu or something? VITO DeMOLA: No, I just played Lacrosse in high school, but I also study martial arts. Q. Still? VITO DeMOLA: Yes, my father owns a karate school in Ohio. That's what I plan on doing. Hopefully not tomorrow. Hopefully he gives me a couple days off after this one. Q. Louis, can you talk about the face‑off battle today? It seemed easy, but it seemed a whole section of the game you guys were kind of dominating. Where were the sections where they were getting the quick clamp and you're coming off the loose balls and stuff like that? LOUIS RILEY: Yeah, he's a great face‑off guy. I said going into this game that it's going to be a real battle, because early in the season it's kind of like 50‑50 between us. He has one of the quickest hands I've seen yet. So I knew coming into this it was going to be a battle. I was preparing all week for it. I was watching my film to see if I was doing anything wrong so I could perfect it and come back into this game. Our last game of the season, it's win or lose. So I had to have everything I do has to be perfect. I had no room for mistakes. So that's why. Throughout the whole game, I felt pretty good, and I felt like I was dominating in the game. My team helped me pick up too after I felt tired after a few draws. It was just that emotion of the team picking you up and saying I've got your back like we did before. It was like my team getting my back. I was winded, and they'd all come over to me like, hey, here you go, and they picked me up so I can do what I do. Q. It seems safe to say that you probably have fun coaching these guys if they're like that all the time. COACH BOYLE: Yeah, they're a fun group of kids. Every day at practice is probably my favorite part of the day, and it has been all year. They're a group of kids that really believed, and we started off the year with belief, commit and follow through. They started believing and they committed all year and they finally followed through. Vito, especially Vito. He's the kind of kid he's not lying when he says I get on him a lot, because I did all year. There were times when he would think he had to do more than he needed to do, and the team had his back. He would be shutout and he wouldn't have any goals and that's great, because there are other guys to do it. Today they were pressuring out. They felt they needed to take away our first line midfield, and they did a decent job of that. And Vito was on an island. It was an opportunity for him to do what he does best. Q. Would you talk about his game, the goals and everything? He was so clutch, it seemed like. COACH BOYLE: Yeah, he's had games where the exact opposite has happened, and that's the great thing about this sport. For him to be able to do that in this setting, I'm just so happy for him, because he wanted to be the guy all year long. And there were times he was, and times he needed to be. And one day Billy Richardson would have three goals, another day Mike Brennan would have three goals, another day Matt Muzio would come in and score too. It's just one of those situations and today was Vito's day. The other guys were not being shut off, but they were being edged out. It was a hot day. And the middies, we run a short bench there. Vito had an opportunity, he saw it, and he did a great job. Q. Coach, the sequence at the end of the game there in the press box, it seemed like they were unsure what happened. Got shot on. Couldn't tell if Dougherty made the save or one of your defensemen did. Can you talk about how that played out? COACH BOYLE: When we're up 11‑8 and trying to be as patient as possible and trying to get everybody back on defense, we're okay with turnovers. And hold the ball as long as you can. Keep it on the end line as long as you can. Take as much time to clear it, take as much time to sub. I think we got a little overanxious. We chased a couple of sticks at times, and our goal was to never Chase sticks and never try to take the ball away. Our philosophy was position, position, position, and run with them. When we were doing that, we were doing a good job. That sequence was haywire. It was crazy. I don't know if he made the save. I think I was trying to see, and I couldn't tell. I know one went wide and another one came in. I'm not sure if he got a piece of it or not. But Ryan did a great job. He made the saves he needed to make, and the offense gutted through a good game. Our defense giving up ten goals, sometimes you say it's probably not the best defensive effort. But at times they were on top of their game because that team can put in 15 to 17 easily on a lot of people. So we knew we were going to have to weather some storms, and we did a good job of doing it. And Lou did a great job on face‑offs. They were kind of even, but there were some big ones and critical ones. There were some big ones that Jake won too to get back in the game. My hat's off to Coach Clarke. He did a great job there. I think it's hard to beat a team twice in one season. It's happened to us before, and we've come out on the losing end. It happened to us in 2010. We go into the semifinals and sure enough we lose to a team we beat. It's just hard. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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