Sept. 24, 2012

Ole Miss head coach Matt Mott met with members of the media on Monday afternoon to discuss the previous week's action and talk about the upcoming road contests at Florida and Auburn.

Opening Statement:
We were on the road this weekend against Missouri on Friday night. We lost that game 2-1. We scored a good goal early, Bethany Bunker’s first goal. We gave up two goals in the second half to lose 2-1. We played really well. It’s a tough place to play. They had a huge crowd. They’re a very good team. They’re 16th in the country. They really stretched us out. They were fast, hard and very athletic. It was a good challenge for us.

Then we played Alabama Sunday. We beat them 1-0 on a penalty kick from Mandy McCalla. She drew the penalty and scored the penalty. We played fantastic defensively yesterday. Kelly McCormick was excellent in goal. Alabama had a penalty before ours and she saved it. She gave up a rebound and was able to dive on a rebound before they were able to get to it. She was great and made two or three big time saves.

Our team defense was great yesterday. Throughout we were able to create some opportunities. We hit the cross bar twice in the first half. It was a really good win for us on the road. Anytime you can get points on the road in this league it is a good accomplishment. I’m very happy with how we performed all weekend. Friday night we just didn’t get the result. To get the win at Alabama was certainly a great step forward for our team.

This weekend it doesn’t get any easier. We head to Gainesville to play Florida who is coming off of two wins on the weekend over Tennessee and Georgia. They’re starting to roll a little bit down in Gainesville. They’re a very good team, very athletic. They’re fast and can score goals. They beat Georgia 4-1 Sunday. They’re really rounding into form. It’s going to be a tough task for us.

Then we play Auburn on Sunday who just split on the weekend. They beat LSU on the road and lost to Texas A&M 2-0. I’m happy with the team and where we are. We’re 2-2 in the SEC right now. We’re sitting on about six points, right about mid-table of all of the teams. We’re fighting for a spot to get to Orange Beach. That will continue to be our goal. We need to try and get points this next weekend. We come back home after that.

On Young Players Adapting To SEC Play On The Road:
They never quit. On Friday night they fought the entire time. It was an even game yesterday at Alabama and we battled the entire time. I’m really happy with how we defended them, certainly late in the game when we were holding on to that one goal lead. Both of the goals we gave up on Friday were because of errors we made. We corrected those for Sunday and the team fought really hard.”

On The Back Line And Goalkeeper Kelly McCormick:
To get a shutout on the road in this league is really hard. Samantha Sanders and Maddie Friedmann are really anchoring our center backs and those guys played fantastic. Jessica Hiskey played well on the left again. Those are three freshmen that grew up during that game on Friday night at Missouri and they were ready for the battle on Sunday. Maddie Cunningham is our junior that plays back there on the right side. All four of them really battled. Erin Emerson is playing holding mid, her and Alex Hildal, those guys put it in all weekend. They both played over 80 minutes in each game and they really battled for us. It was a total team defense win for us yesterday.