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OAKLAND vs. COLUMBIA
NOVEMBER 14, 2008
ATHLETICS CENTER O'RENA

Head Coach Beckie Francis Opening Statement
"I'll take that for an opening game. I was very proud of the depth that we showed, especially without Jessica Pike (whom) we were just giving a little rest. I was really pleased with how these two (Melissa Jeltema and Hanna Reising) kind of took the scoring load off the rest of the team. Loved the bench play, thought we had some great sparks from Anna Patritto and Sharise Calhoun, and some others. I'm really, really pleased."

On Jessica Pike not playing
"She got banged up a little bit in practice on Wednesday. We had a nice discussion, and she could have played tonight, but we didn't want to push it, it's a long year and she had been out a couple of weeks ago too, because she got a concussion, so we didn't want to push it. We just had a lot of confidence because we didn't actually have Pike for a week in practice a few weeks ago, so we just said let's play it safe and there was no reason to make her go if she wasn't 100 percent. She'll be back in practice tomorrow and we play Niagara on Sunday, so we will have a fresh Pike, on top of what you saw tonight."

On any surprises tonight
"Sharise Calhoun, although she's been playing like that in practice. Anna Patritto really isn't a surprise, she is sort of a fan favorite and she produces."

On the ball movement tonight and having 24 assists and nine turnovers
"I didn't realize that until I saw it. In fact I thought our offense was struggling a little bit. I know that some of the starters were complaining that it's not as comfortable, and I told them that's because you have freshman out there and new rotations. Some of the returners were a little frustrated, but we still got the job done. I complimented them in the locker room because they weathered the storm. It was a little frustrating in the first half, because it just wasn't flowing, but it's the first game too."

On having a killer instinct
"What I think is happening is that because of our depth, everyone is fighting for minutes and they know it. So when they are in there, they are just playing hard and don't care what the score is. They just want to beat their teammate out to get on the floor. It's pretty even. We have five or six sixth men, and I don't know who that person is going to be yet, so they just keep fighting and fighting and don't look at the score. "I thought we were in better shape than them. A couple of times I saw they had their hands on their hips and we take pride in that."

On showing the depth of the team
"That's traditionally what I do. The first 10 games I like to give everybody a chance and see how they perform and then we'll start narrowing that down as we go in to conference play. However if it keeps working, we'll play all 13 people. "They all work hard and I think that they all deserve to play. And I think that keeps practices competitive if they know they are going to get an opportunity to play in a game each night. The starters don't really like it because they want to play 40 (minutes)."

Melissa Jeltema
On taking it upon herself to score more with (Jessica) Pike being out
"No, not really actually. We didn't think too much about not having her in the game. We just came out there to play hard, wanting to win and play good defense." On the defensive play "Our help side was really good, especially for our first game. If I was getting posted up, somebody was always there to get my back."

Hanna Reising
On the team's depth tonight
"We feel really confident in our bench and know that they can beat the other team's bench any day. I think Sharise (Calhoun) really stepped up, Anna (Patritto) had a really good game, and it just gives us confidence knowing that we have those people to come in."

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