Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery

JOHN BLUEM
Ohio State Head Coach

"It was a hard-fought game. Oakland is a very strong team with some great attackers. We were under pressure a lot of the day, but I tell you, I have to take my hat off our back four and our goalkeeper today, and our entire team's defensive effort."

"You never suspect (that the game will go to penalty kicks). I think the way the game went with the pressure we were under, the further along that the game continued, I think we felt okay about getting to penalty kicks. We never stopped attacking. Some of our best chances came in the overtime period. So we didn't sit back and play for penalty kicks … we came after them and wanted to win the game."

Mitch Hildebrandt
OU Freshman Goalkeeper

On the play of the Golden Grizzlies this season
"We've had a tremendous season. With a young class and the guys we have coming in I'm sure we'll have three more while I'm here. The guys that we have leaving are hard to replace, but we're going to try and get that accomplished and have another good year next year."

Gary Parsons
Oakland Head Coach

"Well, as they say, if you don't put the ball in the back of the net you don't win. That was how it ended up today. We had our chances and we had plenty of them, and we just didn't get it in the back of the net."

On the play of his freshman keeper against one of the top teams in the country
"We might not have given him enough preparation for the last game, we went to him on short notice. He had a week to prepare for this one and he showed what kind of goalkeeper he is. We knew that, and he's going to be replacing a very, very good one in Steve (Clark), but I know he's up for it and he showed it today."

Overall sentiments on the 2008 season
"It's been a great year. You know what, I said this to the guys in the locker room before the game started, that I really haven't had to jump down their throat at halftime one time this year because they weren't playing hard. Usually you always have a few of those games where mentally you're not ready to play on the day, and some days we played better than other days, but for the most part this year we always worked hard and we showed it again today."

On the hard, physical play today
"We like to think that we're not going to get knocked around. Certainly (Ohio State) is a physical team and they always have been, so from a physicality standpoint we knew it was going to be a physical game. I was happy with the way we controlled the game, I don't know how many good chances they got, and we had our chances. All you can do is ask that the game goes that way and that you put your chances away, and that's the part we didn't get done."

On the frozen ground changing the team's gameplan
"Yeah, you have to be a little bit more direct, and you can't knock it around as well when you're playing on a nice, smooth surface. We practiced some on it this week and we also went inside."

Parting words for his five seniors
"It's been great. The leadership in this team and from the seniors has been outstanding. You always worry about seniors going out to their last year, wondering if they're looking too far ahead of themselves, or if they're really focused. You couldn't have asked for more from these guys as far as being leaders to this team."

-30-