Steve Cogley Quotations

It was an intense game. They are the defending state champions and were undefeated this year. We needed to play well. We had a breakdown last year in the state tourney versus Pierre. There's a lot of intensity every time we play.

That's exactly what we expected. We expected close games this weekend. The No. 1 seed all the way down to the No. 7 seed played tight games this season. We tied them (R.C. Central) 2-2 earlier this season. Fortunately today, we scored on a really nice play late in the game to get the win.

The guys were exhausted but you could tell they were happy. We really had to fight some adversity, but we were able to pull it out. That's not easy to do when you're tired.

The guys are extremely excited. Everybody who follows high school soccer in South Dakota knows about how big of a rivalry we have with Pierre. Two years ago we beat them in the state championship game in Aberdeen. Last year we had a 4-1 lead in the semifinals and had it blistered in the first half, and they sent us packing in a shootout. So any time we beat Pierre in a big game, it's exciting for our players.

I was very disappointed with our effort. This was a team we should have beaten. We ran out of gas. We need to step up more. We have enough leadership and experience on this team that we can't make excuses. I was more pleased with last night than today. You can't just expect to show up and win, it doesn't work that way.

We just played at Pierre and Yankton last weekend. We were fortunate to come away with a 1-0 win at Yankton. They're a tough team. They play a style of soccer that is very similar to ours. It's going to be a really good game.

They were shots from quite a distance away which our goalie was tracking. One of our guys would deflect the ball and make it change direction a little and our goalie was not able to react in time. This was two good teams battling each other. I was very encouraged with how we looked.