NCAA Soccer Quotes: Tennessee 2, Murray State 0

Tennessee Head Coach Brian Pensky

Opening Statement:
"Obviously, the first five minutes were tough. Emotional. Confusing—because we didn't know how Bunny (Shaw) was, and we were concerned about her and worried about her. The 23 other players on this team were concerned for her. After, I think our team did respond well, and played a good first half. We got a great message from the hospital at half time. Bunny told the team to score a goal. That made the kids at the start of the second half smile. In terms of the game, credit to Murray State, they were fantastic. They were athletic. They were disruptive. They were organized. They gave us all we could handle. Total credit to our kids and in particular to the two kids that are sitting up here with me now because they changed the game. First Danielle (Marcano)'s goal obviously and then the second one really put Murray State in a hole there. I thought our team showed great composure. It's no secret that Bunny scored 14 goals for us this year. To all the sudden be worried about her and to have to play without her, you need kids that can step up. As a coach, you talk about that all the time. You never know when your chance is going to come. Kids sometimes look at you like you're full of you-know-what, but the reality is that Danielle's chance came. It's probably the most minutes she has played since earlier in the season when she was a wideback. Her goal changed the game and it's stories like this and moments like this that are very special. And I'm obviously proud of Erin for kind of putting the game away."

Junior Danielle Marcano

On staying positive through in change in playing time this season:
"It's all about the team. You always have to put the team first and you want everyone to succeed, so our best chance to win I think—that's what you have to think about. You always just have to stay positive."

Redshirt Freshman Erin Gilroy

On how frustrating it was to dominate the first half in their zone, but come out scoreless:
"I think we stayed pretty positive. We went to halftime and we just knew that if we kept knocking at the door that it was coming. Maya (Neal) played a great ball and then Danielle was able to finish it, so I think that as a team we just kept pushing their line. We stayed positive with it."

Murray State Head Coach Jeremy Groves

On how game plan changed after the injury to Tennessee junior Khadija Shaw:
"I think that they have so many weapons that it (the game plan) didn't change too much. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to say that I'm not glad she wasn't on the field for 90 minutes—it would have been a lot harder—but we still stuck to the same game plan we wanted to do. We didn't want to let the ball go wide. We didn't want to let Tennessee get services in the box. That's obviously where they were more—where we have seen anyway where they have been more dangerous. So, we wanted to funnel everything into midfield and kind of stop them playing and I think we did a really good job of that."

Sophomore Miyah Watford

On what it was like to play a top 20 team in the first round of the NCAA Tournament:
"I think it's—going from where we started the season to come here has been great. Playing this team has taught us that we can still hang with the big dogs. In the first half it was 0-0, and we just had a couple of mistakes that we will fix next time we try to get here. I just think it proves to ourselves that how much we worked and how hard we worked has finally payed off. Just because we are a small school, we are not something to mess with."

Senior Nyomi Devine

On how tiring the first half versus Tennessee was with their relentless attacks:
"It's just staying focused and just keeping ahead of the game and keeping compact as a team. I think we did well. I think we fought well, and weren't really scared that much in the first half. They didn't make too many chances that scared us, so we were prepared and ready for them. Just two long balls in that we didn't deal with well enough in the second half."

Tennessee Head Coach Brian Pensky

Junior Danielle Marcano

Redshirt Freshman Erin Gilroy

Murray State Head Coach Jeremy Groves

Sophomore Miyah Watford

Senior Nyomi Devine

Players Mentioned

Erin Gilroy

Danielle Marcano

Bunny Shaw

University of Tennessee Athletics