Nov. 20, 2004

Recap |  Box Score

Head Coach Jerry Smith
"I'm very proud of our team. They executed our game plan perfectly. I thought we really stepped up and beat an outstanding North Carolina team on their home field. When you play Carolina in the NCAA Tournament, you pretty much have to play mistake-free, and I thought our team did today."

"One of the tings we talked about that we could do to stop them, was Megan Kakadelas getting the ball behind their defense. It was a strategy we had from the get-go; we trained a lot on that this week."

"Megan (Kakadelas) showed tremendous character in the second half. She got in a wonderful one-on-one position with the goal and wasn't able to capitalize on that. For Megan to regroup and put her next chance away just showed tremendous character."

"Today was a team effort. I couldn't be any more proud of my group."

"Having had to come here last year to play gave us a little better preparation for this year's game... just knowing the environment, the crowd."

"I told my girls at the end of the game that we're the first team to knock Carolina out this early. It's one thing to talk about it and another to execute in this environment, against this team. It's pretty special."

On the Broncos' No. 16 seeding
"I don't think you need any extra motivation when you're playing in the tournament. You don't need anything extra in terms of motivation when playing Carolina. But the NCAA gave it to us and we took advantage of it. We felt the seeding last year was inaccurate and to be 16th this year... I just don't get it at all. The NCAA says they use their criteria and I say `blow up the criteria and get better criteria, because it's not working'; this should have been a final four game."

"It's bittersweet for me. Soccer is still a growing sport. You should want your best four teams at the final four and a final four without North Carolina is not including your four best teams in the country. Bit it was us or them; that's the way the bracket laid out. The College cup should be a showcase of the best teams. Carolina should clearly be there. We should too.

On the second half
"We used a lot more of our depth in the second half. I kind of held on to it. Tiffany Roberts and Brittany Klein didn't play at all in the first half--and they've started a lot of games for us. I thought when they got in after halftime that they gave us some energy.

"Often times, teams lose to Carolina because they lose before kick-off, or they lose during the first half when they get down. I said to the team at halftime, `this time last year, we were down 2-0, and look at the position we're in now. The glass is half full; what a wonderful opportunity we have in front of ourselves right now. I think it was our team believing even more after a half of soccer than they believed me during the week."

Senior Forward Megan Kakadelas
On her goal
"In the back of my mind, I thought `don't miss this' (referring to earlier miss). She (UNC goalkeeper Aly Winget) gave me some room on the near post side and I saw that, so I just put it in."

On the team believing
"It was on everybody's face; the desire, the determination."

Senior Midfielder Leslie Osborne
On the team believing
"There was a moment in the second half, about 10 minutes in, and I just said to myself `we're going to get this... it was going to come. All we had to do was keep doing the same thing.' I just really felt it."

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