Transcript from Paula Wilkins' press conference
November 02, 2010 | Women's Soccer
Nov. 2, 2010
Wisconsin women’s soccer head coach Paula Wilkins spoke with the media at Monday's press conference. A transcript can be found below.
Paula Wilkins: Really excited for the game tonight against Northwestern. Obviously being our last home game, it has a huge bearing on NCAA ramifications, and also the Big Ten. A win tonight would help us propel to the top of the Big Ten, and then waiting to see how Penn State and Ohio State fare in their games. So talking to the players and making sure that we take care of all the details we can, and let the chips fall where they may.
Coming off an exciting weekend against Michigan and Michigan State, always two very good teams, coming out with two shutouts and a big overtime win, with two minutes left to go in the game. So (I’m) excited to watch the team and we talked about giving the seniors a great going away gift on their home field, and hopefully preparing for post-season with out fingers crossed. So (I’m) looking forward to the game tonight.
QUESTION #1: Paula, would you say you’re in the NCAA tournament, or don’t you really know?
WILKINS: If we do everything we need to tonight, and get a win, I’m confident of that. But, I’m not one of the statistic man’s, one of my assistants is the guy who is the rainman and checks out all the details. Right now, we’re sitting 22 in the RPI, so most people would say that it is a good chance, win or lose, that we get in. But, you know, for our team right now, we want to make sure we take care of the Big Ten, and give ourself every opportunity to possibly win the Big Ten with a win tonight, if Ohio State and Penn State get a tie or a loss in their final games. So I’m confident in it, but, I never know until I actually see on Monday the draw. So it will be sleepless nights until that happens.
QUESTION #2: Winning a Big Ten title, if that’s something that does happen, would you say at this point in time this is on pace for where you expected to be, challenging or maybe winning a Big Ten title, ahead of where you would have hoped to be, or?
WILKINS: Obviously, any time you win, you would be happy. I would say we’re a little bit faster in pace than expected. However, a huge compliment goes to the seniors that we have because, when I came in my first year, they really had to make some changes to what we were doing and buy into it. And they really laid the foundation to our success.
So if that does come to fruition, our success is going to be based on the players that came in, and the players right behind them that really made a difference in terms of speeding it up and really having that urge and the hunger to go get that. And I just laid the foundation for them, and they kind of built the building from it.
QUESTION #3: Who have been the pleasant surprises for your club this year? I mean, you hear the Nosbusch’s and the Dalton’s, and you know, the Kelter’s and what have you, who has kind of stood out that few people really know?
WILKINS: You know, the back line has really done well. Meghan Flannery has been asked to move from an outside back to a much more commanding role, and really has been the anchor of that back line, and has done really well. And I think many people don’t give her credit for what she does.
Freshman Catie Sessions has been fantastic with creating opportunities on set pieces, but also being consistent defensively. And, you know, obviously as a freshman coming in as a forward/midfielder, and then becoming a consistent defender has been a big change. And she bought into it right away for the team.
And then the one person I always talk about is Erin Jacobsen. You won’t see her on any stat sheets, but she really makes the midfield run and puts so much work into what she does.
I could keep going on and talk about a bunch of them, how they’ve all risen to the level. This is truly a team effort for what they do. We have players who obviously get some results from doing some goals or assists, and stand out in that way, but this team wouldn’t be successful unless they trusted each other and really were united with what they did.
QUESTION #4: How much of a buzz do you think last year’s run, this year challenging for a conference title, has created for your program, especially within the soccer community in Wisconsin with possible future recruits and even just fans in general?
WILKINS: It has done a great job for us in Wisconsin. I always tell everybody I think the backbone of our program is Wisconsin players. They’re sort of the nature that I’d like to work with, the type of athlete I like to work with. And it’s caused a little bit of buzz because I think people see that we’re going in the right direction. Obviously, the first two years were a little bit challenging, to say the least, but I think getting into the NCAA, or possibly getting into the NCAA again, and being in the top of the Big Ten, the lowest we can do in the Big Ten right now is third, and the highest we can obviously do is number one.
So I think people see us competing more on the national stage, and that helps us with players who are on the national stage at a recruiting level. And those little baby steps take some time, but it really goes back to the effort and the results that the older players have created.
