|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIPSMay 25, 2014Kevin CorriganMatt KavanaghStephen O'HaraBALTIMORE, MARYLAND KEVIN CORRIGAN: We're just thrilled to be here. Couldn't be more excited to have an opportunity to play for the championship. Looking forward to a great day. Q. Duke has a lot of options, both midfield and attack. They scored 15 goals on you in the first game. They're sort of like Albany in terms of number of options they have. How do you guys, I guess, going into the game, how are you guys trying to prepare for just all the options they have? KEVIN CORRIGAN: You know, I think first thing is you have to break down to what it is they do and where they do it and how they do it, so I think it starts with taking away some of their early offense. They're so effective when they come down the field, starting with Haus as he comes down the field with the ball, and then as the midfielders cycle onto the field they love to attack in that early offense when it's maybe five on five and some subbing going on, and you have to defend that, which is a real challenge with players as talented as they have. Secondly, I think you have to make the game a little bit more of a full‑field game so that they can't just run that first midfield to death and keep those guys out there. Every six‑on‑six possession you have to defend their first midfield, so that's going to be us turning our stops to possessions and maybe keeping some guys on the field a little bit and making them play a full‑field game of lacrosse, so I think those two things will certainly be important. And then hopefully we're maybe a little bit better defending some of the actions that they did to us the first game, because we certainly didn't do a good job of it in that game. STEPHEN O'HARA: Yeah, I think it's going to start with getting out and guarding these guys, and then from there just making the right decisions from the slide perspective and inner reads, and hopefully we can give shots, CK shots that he likes to see and he can eat them up. But just got to recognize that they have six guys out there that can score, and I don't think we're going to do too much differently, but we're just going to fall back on our fundamentals and communication. Q. Stephen, presuming that you'll be matched up with Jordan Wolf, as a defense in general I think the attitude is that it's better to play Duke very physically, very aggressively in terms of trying to get out on them. Is that something you have discussed and do you agree with that sentiment? STEPHEN O'HARA: I don't think we've discussed that, but I think that's something that we like to do. We like to get out and challenge guys and make them make plays right from the start. I'm sure we'll discuss that more today and figure out exactly how we're going to play. KEVIN CORRIGAN: You guys know more about our game plan right now than we do. Q. Kevin, how much can you take from the first game in terms of scouting. Has Duke made a lot of changes? KEVIN CORRIGAN: We're still evaluating that because we're still watching‑‑ I watched their Syracuse game this morning and we're going to re‑watch yesterday's game again and watch our game against them last night. So we're still kind of doing a little bit of comparative analysis to see what they're doing more of and less of. But I guess the simple version of that is if we play like we did the first time, they'll thump us again, so we've got to get better. Q. I know yesterday you were not interested in thinking big picture, but I know at the same time you've done two games in three days before, you've done a conference tournament before, but this is kind of a different animal. What do you as a coach kind of take from your experience four years ago and try to apply to this? KEVIN CORRIGAN: The biggest thing is that probably something I've learned not just from four years ago but over 30 years. At the end of the year, your guys need fresh legs and fresh minds, and they need to be ready to play and excited to play, so we can't do too much right now. We'll do enough that we're prepared, but we're not going to do too much where we're going to leave something on the practice field. So we'll just try to‑‑ nothing that they're doing is something that we haven't seen from another opponent this year as well as from them, okay. So it's not like at this time of the year we're reinventing the wheel. We already know how to do these things, we just kind of need to remind our guys and make them familiar with it and help them recognize when it's going to happen and so forth. But as Stephen said, at the end of the day, it goes back to our reliance on our fundamentals, our communication and our confidence athletically to get out there and play them. Q. Do you mind my asking about your 10‑man ride and what it is that makes it so effective and is it nice having that ace in the hole if you do get down like you did against Albany and Detroit last year? MATT KAVANAGH: Yeah, well, it starts with I guess down at the attack, just try to buy some time to try to force them to make a play they're not comfortable making with under 10 seconds. They have to force it to get it into the box. If they do get it past the midfield line, Steve and Matt Landis are just waiting there for a takeaway check, a kill check, so I think our attack has done a great job routing all season, and if we have to go with the 10‑man ride which I'm hoping we don't have to do tomorrow, we've done it before. STEPHEN O'HARA: I think putting our team in positions where we can surround them and then kind of fading and to drove past where you can get an easy double, but it's really just catching them kind of off guard and not ready for the pressure, but when guys like Conor Doyle and Scioscia and Kav are riding their defensemen, their goalie, it makes my job a lot easier when they eventually do get it over the midfield line. Q. Matt, coach Danowski suggested that Henry Lobb will be guarding you tomorrow. What does he do in his approach to you that is different or unique in comparison to other guys that you've matched up with multiple times? MATT KAVANAGH: Well, his style is kind of different. He's much taller than me, weighs more than me, so he can try to play physical with me. But I mean, I've had some success against him last year. I didn't really do too much against him earlier this year, so we'll see. It just goes on a game‑to‑game basis. Yeah, we'll just see tomorrow. Q. Matt, you talked yesterday about how your whole defense is really clicking, but I think in particular you and Conor Doyle have really had the chemistry going there. Can you just tell me about how that's kind of developed for you over the year? MATT KAVANAGH: I think it started last year. We played a whole season together last year, so this is our second full season together. We practice every day going over new things, even off the field our chemistry is great. But yeah, we're playing with great confidence right now, and at the perfect time, too. Q. Kevin, when did you start seeing the knee‑down technique at the face‑off kind of come in vogue, and do you think Fowler's success with that last year had anything to do with maybe more players kind of leaning that way this year? KEVIN CORRIGAN: I don't know. Taylor Clagett was doing it for us a decade ago, so I don't think it's anything really that new to be honest with you. Q. If I may ask, yesterday on the face‑offs it looked like you were double pulling the wings and had Perkovic in an attack spot. Is that something we might see tomorrow? KEVIN CORRIGAN: Well, with the double pulls, Christian, we're just trying to battle. If we don't feel like we can kind of win that one‑on‑one face‑off match‑up cleanly, then we just want to try to tie it up and turn it into a three on three, and Garrett Epple does a great job up there, is a ground ball guy, and Henry Williams and Chris Prevoznik are doing a great job for us on that other wing. Yeah, we're just trying to muck it up a little bit. Q. Do you think we might see it tomorrow? KEVIN CORRIGAN: It depends. You know, it's one of the things we're prepared to do if we're not winning face‑offs cleanly. Oh, actually Liam had a great game against this guy in the first game. It's one of the bright spots in that game quite honestly. Q. Every time you guys have faced an opponent a second or even a third time like Maryland, you guys have adjusted really well. What have you guys, I guess, seen in film and then put on the practice field in order to take advantage of that? And obviously you're playing Duke a second time, who beat you guys pretty handily the first time. MATT KAVANAGH: The guys on the radio show, they were saying that the only ACC team we haven't beaten is Duke. I think playing them earlier in the season, we can kind of find out what we did well and what we didn't do well. I think Coach does a great job of breaking down film. We watch a lot of film and then apply it to the field in practice and the games. I think seeing a team being prepared and seeing what they have already done to us in the first game is going to help us tomorrow. STEPHEN O'HARA: I just think we're a better team now than we were a few months or weeks ago, so I think the ability for us to grow and get better each day and lead us to this point is going to be the difference. KEVIN CORRIGAN: I would agree. I think Steve just hit it on the head. You hope if nothing else from the beginning of the year to the end of the year you're getting better and getting a little bit smarter about things, and I think that's kind of been our journey this year has been to have some ups and downs but to keep learning and progressing through all of it, and I think that's what we've done and why we're playing our best lacrosse right now. Q. For both the players, do you feel like the position you guys are in towards the end of the regular season as far as having to win games, most likely having to win games to maybe kind of get into the tournament has prepared you just for this whole kind of stretch run as far as all the mental stuff that goes into it? STEPHEN O'HARA: Yeah, there's definitely pressure going to the ACC Tournament against Maryland. Kind of that was our‑‑ we win it, then great, we'll probably be in the tournament, and if not, then our season might be cut short. I think that pressure has helped us and kind of brought this team to a different level, and once we got that win we could kind of build up some confidence and that got the ball rolling. MATT KAVANAGH: I think we had the mindset and mentality of playoff lacrosse two weeks before the NCAA tournament even started. To get a jump start on that mentality and just continue to build off that has been really helpful to our team up to this point. Q. Coach, how does your confidence in Conor Kelly and the way he's played over the last several games compare to some of the goal tending that you've gotten that's been exceptional over the last decade or so? KEVIN CORRIGAN: You know, after yesterday? I thought Conor was terrific yesterday. But he's been coming to that. You know, again, like you guys see this as a snapshot, and I see it as an evolution over the course of weeks and months, and we've seen Conor have some ups and downs this year, but there's a reason why he's back in the goal for us right now. He was earning that on a daily basis. That wasn't a holy smoke, let's try Conor kind of thing. It was Conor's starting to play well, let's get him the opportunity to get back in there, and he's kind of run with that. He's gaining his confidence and just really playing I think the way he always knew he could and the way we always thought he could. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports \ |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|