After the team’s 3-0 loss at the hands of United PDX, Head Coach Jurgen Ruckaberle, forward Sela Freeman, and midfielder Neve Duston shared their thoughts on the match.
HEAD COACH JURGEN RUCKABERLE
On his overall impressions of the game, playing with only 14 players:
“I thought we held up really well. We were a little bit short-handed today. The players handled the situation really well, tactically they stayed organized and disciplined. We gave up one goal in the half that could’ve been avoided, but they stuck to the plan. In the second half it was a similar story. Within two minutes, they scored two goals, and that really turned the tide.”
On his players’ performance:
I was proud of them. They hung in there and battled all the way. I wish we could’ve gotten a goal towards the end, because we had a couple of sitters, but they had a good goalkeeper who made a good save in the first half and then we headed one over.”
On the game next Friday in Olympia:
“Same story. I told the players that we still haven’t won away from home, so we’re going to approach the game in the same way. Obviously, we have to be disciplined against a team that’s very talented and sits atop the table, but we’ll approach it in the same way, play tactically organized and follow the gameplan. Every game we’ve had chances. Today we had three or four and we have to do better finishing them and then [clean up] some of the mistake that we make.”
PLAYER OF THE MATCH SELA FREEMAN
On the result:
“I think just like last game, we fell asleep for five minutes and then they took advantage of that. That’s how they got their three goals, when we made little mistakes.”
On the team’s solid start:
“We were just fighting for it, and we were very patient, and then when the moment came, we sent the perfect through ball but just couldn’t finish it. We were being patient and were hungry for it.”
On the squad’s fighting spirit:
“Starting the season off with consistent ties and losses, we just knew we really wanted it and we wanted to finish. We knew that we could come back from a one-goal deficit. As we’ve shown in our last game, we can come back with three [goals].”
On the final match of the season next week in Olympia:
“I’m looking forward to a really good game. I want to perform and hopefully get some points out of it. We’re all hoping to end the season on a good note.”
TEAM CAPTAIN NEVE DUSTON
On the team’s approach to this match:
“We knew that they were going to be a good side and that we had to be smart and that means sometimes you sit a bit lower and defend, then break out when you can. I think we played smart; we knew that they had strong players and we had to [mark] tight to begin the game and I think we did that.”
On the team’s overall mentality and never-give-up attitude:
“We have a sort of unified phrase, which is that ‘hard work always beats talent.’ If you can control anything, it’s to control your work rate, and I think that’s something that runs deep within this team. No matter what, if we’re up 4-0, or 3-0 down, we’re always going to have that hard-work mentality. Even here, yeah, they scored three goals, but it’s always about the work rate that you put in and those minutes in between.”
On the team’s final game versus Oly Town:
“We’re always hoping for a win. We want to go out with a good performance and represent the club as best we can.”