Nebraska vs. Creighton Postgame Quotes

2005 NCAA Tournament
Nebraska vs. Creighton
Postgame Quotes

Nebraska Head Coach John Walker
On the set plays
"We had 13 corner kicks and we didn’t score. It seems like the games when we get the incredible amount of corner kicks, we never score. And the games we get five or six corner kicks, we score two or three. Creighton did a good job of defending the corner kicks but we know we can do a better job on the execution. But in time we did score on a set play and not too many teams score as much as we have on set plays."

On Portland
"They are a fantastic team. Their record speaks for itself. I think at this stage to go on in the NCAA Tournament you have to beat someone like Portland. I think the best way for us to look at it is that we would rather have the opportunity to do that at home."

"They are an excellent team. In my opinion, they are the best time in the country, and we know we will have to be at our best. I think anyone that comes here to this program comes to get an opportunity to play in these games against the best teams in the country. I really look forward to those games where the quality is high. We you are involved in competitive sports, these are the games that you anticipate the most."

Nebraska Senior Midfielder Vern Fitzgerald
On Coach Walker’s 200th Win
"It is a huge accomplishment obviously and it just proves that John (Walker) is the man."

On Portland
"It should be a good game for us. We know we are going to have to be competitive. That is the No. 1 thing for us. If we play like we can I think we have a good chance to give them a good game. They are a good team, but I think we are going to give them a good shot."

Junior forward Brittany Timko
On Coach John Walker’s 200th Win
"We forgot about it because we were so concentrated on trying to get it for him last weekend. But it is great. I think he is one of the best coaches, if not the best coach in the nation."

On the thought process before the goal
"Originally I wasn’t even really thinking about it because I thought it was a penalty kick so Nikki (Baker) was going to take it. I just kind of look at the wall and see a window over the top of the wall. The goalie is not going to see it until the very last second so it is a big thing for me just to get it over the wall. Once it gets over, it has a good chance of getting in."

On Portland
"We are really looking forward to the opportunity because they are the top team in the country. Christine (Sinclair) is one of my good friends and she is an amazing player. We are going to have to see if we can limit her but it is the whole team. Every single one of their players is a good player. We are going to have to play our best game of the season on Sunday."

Creighton Head Coach Bruce Erickson
On the play of both teams
"I think we were with them. Looking at the stats, I think they are a little bit misleading. I think it was a little bit more even of a game. Certainly they had some great chances, but I really thought in terms of what we wanted to do we did well. I thought Em (Emily Munn) did a great job on (Brittany) Timko and we really felt like if we could neutralize her it would help. But really they have a very dangerous team and they’re a dangerous team on set pieces and we knew they’ve scored a lot of goals on set pieces like we have. So we thought it might be a game like that where it would just be who finished their set pieces better and really that’s how it ended up. But I’m proud of my crew. I thought they did a great job. We created enough chances to win the game and to be fair I really didn’t expect a 1-0 game. I thought both teams were capable of scoring goals and we just weren’t good enough today to get one today to get one ourselves but I thought we played great defensively."

On Nebraska Head Coach John Walker’s 200th win
"John is a great coach and he has really assembled some fun teams. He’s put together some teams that have just been really difficult to play against. You can’t afford to let anybody get loose on this team. He’s really done a great job of getting his team to play in an attacking style, a direct style. He’s been very effective."

Goalkeeper Valerie Zimmerer
On Nebraska’s free kick goal
"Brittany Timko is a very talented player and we knew that going into the game. We put Emily Munn on her to mark her and Emily told me as Brittany was taking the free kick that she was going to bend the ball. And of course we couldn’t get into her head to see which way she would bend it but that’s what she did. It was a great hit. Of course I would have liked to get my hands on it or gotten something to it, but I think we gave our best effort on it. We did our best at marking their players and I think if the ball would have deflected we would have had it."

On Creighton’s defense
"Everybody knew their role today and knew who they were supposed to check up on. We stuck with our players and really limited their opportunities, which is all you can ask for from the players in front of you. Of course as a defensive unit you have to rely on each other and I think we did that."

Defender Ally Peetz
On covering Nebraska’s attackers
"Coming into this game we knew that their offense was really talented but we each had our player to mark and I thought we did a good job. We knew that they were going to try and take us one on one a lot and we knew that they were going to goal so our defense had a lot of help from the midfield. Our midfield did a good job of pinching in and coming back and helping us double."