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NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 25, 2013Connor BuczekBen DeLucaThomas KeithRob PannellPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA Duke – 16 BEN DeLUCA: (Sighs.) I'd like to thank our senior class. 16 young men who fought extremely hard for this program, for their teammates. They set an incredible example from day one through today of how to be fine young men. I'm proud of them not just for their accomplishments on the field, and those are many, but for their accomplishments in the classroom and in the community. It's a heartbreaker today, an absolute heartbreaker. I think our coaching staff thought we were very well‑prepared, and I thought we had a pretty good game plan going in. It was a battle in the first half, and that third quarter was a tough one for us. That third quarter really dug us in a pretty deep hole, put us in a situation where we had to battle back, but again, extremely proud of these young men for fighting back. We brought it back within one towards the end of the game. They just continued to hustle and continued to fight and continued to play the style of lacrosse that we've been playing throughout the year to put us back in a situation to potentially tie that game up and even it up, and it didn't break our way today. I'm not really sure what else to say aside from I couldn't be more excited to be representing this program and this University on our sport's grandest stage. For us to get here and for us to get here in the fashion that we did speaks volumes to the leadership that we have from our captains and our senior class, and got to thank a lot of people. Like to thank our alumni, first and foremost, for their support. I think the Cornell lacrosse family and Big Red Nation is second to none in regards to the way that they support our program and our student athletes. Our administration, Dr.Skorton, Dr.Murphy, Andy Noel, our athletic director, have done a wonderful job of supporting our program and putting us in a position to be successful. Our families who allow us to do the things that we do, live our passion, which is Cornell lacrosse, we owe a lot to those people. Q. What happened there in the third quarter when they were able to get off to that monster lead? ROB PANNELL: Yeah, I think it was a combination of things. I think we had some opportunities offensively early in that third quarter to score some goals and tie the game, and their goalie played great all game and did a great job at making saves. We seemed like we hit him on every part of his body and they just weren't falling. And when you're not scoring goals it's tough to put that much pressure on your defense, and I think Duke did a great job with the face‑offs and gaining that momentum and building on it. It's a credit to them. They're a great team and they have athletes and great coaches and did a great job that third quarter of separating themselves. I couldn't be more proud of our team and the way we battled back in the fourth. Q. Can you please describe the differing emotions you must be feeling at this point. ROB PANNELL: Yeah, there's only positive emotions I'm feeling right now, how proud I am of the 15 other seniors besides myself and the great job they did leading this team and how we battled back in the fourth quarter. I think you saw what Cornell lacrosse was all about there, playing until the final whistle, never giving up. I think we did a great job of that from our seniors on down, and the record is what it is. I'd give up everything I've achieved individually to get a chance to play on Monday. Q. Connor or Rob, maybe you guys thought a shoot‑out was going to favor you guys. Was it frustrating when they started pulling away in that shoot‑out? CONNOR BUCZEK: I think we went into the week, we knew Kyle Turri is a great goalie, didn't see the ball great last week, but with the same game plan we have been all postseason, you know, shoot the ball well, take good opportunities, and try not to shoot from like too far out. I think we did that, we just didn't locate the ball as well as we would have liked. Obviously throughout the postseason we shot the ball extremely well, and I think we did a great job of it all week in practice. Coach was really harping on that. We came out, we got opportunities, just didn't always put them in the spots we would have liked. There's a couple we would like to have back, but I think for the most part we got the opportunities we would have liked, we just didn't can all of them. ROB PANNELL: I don't know how many shots we took. I think I looked up at some point and we were at 53 at some point in the fourth quarter, so I imagine it was more than that. When you take 53 shots and only score 13 or 14, we've been shooting the ball great throughout the playoffs, and that's why we've been having success. It's just a great job by their defense in forcing us to shots they wanted and the great job by the goalie saving the ones that were on cage. Q. Can you talk about the first quarter? What happened to you? It looked like you came up dinged up a little bit. You were clutching your rib or your shoulder. ROB PANNELL: Yeah, I felt fine. I was just in the heat of the moment, I got dinged up a little bit but that's not going to stop me playing. If I could have the first quarter back, I'd love to have it back. But I think I've still got some good opportunities, I just didn't do a great job of capitalizing on them. Q. What was it? Did you get hit? ROB PANNELL: It was just everything. I don't know, just‑‑ I can't explain it. It wasn't one thing specifically. Q. Rob, it's been an interesting fifth‑year senior year for you, doing charity work, coming back and getting back to the Final Four. As you graduate from Cornell and begin your professional career and life, how has this fifth year of experience at Cornell helped you? ROB PANNELL: Yeah, it's been an incredible fifth year. It's been an incredible five years at Cornell. I love Cornell more than anything. I love Cornell lacrosse, and it's the best program in the country. I wasn't going to give up a fifth year to be a part of something this special, and to have come back with the group of 15 other seniors, leaving our legacy on Cornell, going to the Final Four, playing great all season long, it's just‑‑ you come back and you learn how to be a leader, and you come back to change, come back to a team where my eight best friends graduated the year prior and building new friendships and I have 15 new best friends in that senior class that will be my brothers forever. To come back and play for Coach DeLuca one more year, it's just an opportunity, and to be beside my brothers, there was no other choice for me. Q. Thomas, can you describe your senior year experience? THOMAS KEITH: Senior year was like nothing I've ever experienced before. It was just everything that we experienced, it's just special, I keep dear in my heart. We've been through this with all the same guys and the same class, 15 other guys, we got Rob back this year, and it was just our seniors that were so tight and we kept the team going through tough times. I couldn't trade this senior year for anything else in the world. Q. Rob, it looked like after the final whistle you took 30 seconds or whatever to compose yourself. What's running through your mind during that period? ROB PANNELL: How lucky I am to be a part of this program. Five years as fast as they go through my head at that point, and it's been a special five years. Every year I've ended up crying, but I knew I'd be back the next year. And this is the last time I'm going to put this jersey. It's going to take a while for me to take it off; I'll tell you that much. I came back to win a National Championship at the end of the day. I'll leave Cornell with 15 new best friends and a career at Cornell that I can be proud of but more importantly I'll be a young man that was shaped by the Cornell lacrosse program, and I feel extremely fortunate, the luckiest person in the world to be able to spend five years at such a fine institution and play for the best program in the country, and that's pretty much what flashed through my head, and the fact that I couldn't believe it was over. Q. Coach, can you talk about the time you spent with Rob, what he's meant to this program and the team? BEN DeLUCA: I don't think I have enough time to explain that really. I could be here all day. But you talk about one of the greatest leaders that our program has ever seen, one of the most loyal young men, one of the hardest workers, one of the most complete players in the game, a guy who never was satisfied with where he was. He always continued to push himself, and he raised the bar for not only himself but his teammates and our program. We talk a lot about leaving someplace better than you found it, and Rob Pannell leaves Cornell lacrosse better than he found it. His legacy will be lasting and permanent and one that will be treasured by our current returners and our coaching staff for quite a while. I think he's a special young man, and what he's done on the lacrosse field pales in comparison to what he's done for us in the locker room and in the community. Just a special young man and incredibly proud to have him lead our program the way he has over the last few years. Q. Was this as well as you've seen Turri play? BEN DeLUCA: Absolutely, this is as good as we've seen him play, and credit to Duke for‑‑ they played very well today, and in particular their goaltender. He saw the ball well, he made some clutch saves. I think we got some good opportunities that we've been burying over the last couple weeks, and we just weren't able to find the back of the net. Sometimes we didn't produce good enough shots. I don't think we made it very challenging for him at times, and there were times when he made some very nice saves and other times where I don't know if we challenged him as much as we could have or we should have, but you've got to credit that young man for making plays. That was probably the difference, that and special teams today. Obviously you're going to talk about face‑offs and the advantage that they garnered there, but I think the goalie really stood on his head and kept us off the board in some crucial situations. Q. AJ and Rob and the seniors graduating this year, there were some peaks and valleys today, what do you think it was in that third quarter kind of different than the other three today? BEN DeLUCA: Yeah, hard to say. You start at the face‑off. I think they dominated possession. I think we may have had three or four possessions in total on the offensive end. We played a lot of defense. We played too much defense. And Duke generated some good scoring opportunities. I think we got a little frustrated defensively probably. Credit their guys for making big plays. I don't think we did a very good job of defending Jordan Wolf. He's an incredible player and a dynamic dodger and scorer and did a good job there. I think possession was really where it started. We couldn't get possession of the ball and Duke had some nice possessions. We fouled sometimes and got a man down. I talked about it earlier, I think our special teams were tough. We battled back late in the game but early in the game they got a couple there, and our extra man didn't capitalize maybe the way we should have or could have. It was a couple of factors starting at the face‑off X and then maybe a little bit of some miscommunication at the defensive end that led to some scoring opportunities for Duke, and again, credit Duke for finishing those. Q. Did they do something to make you guys one‑dimensional? Rob had 20 shots. BEN DeLUCA: Well, they weren't sliding to him. I think that was a big part of it, and they were allowing him to dodge and get his shots off, and I think Rob was taking what the defense was giving him. I do think we'll watch the film and we'll probably discuss involving some of those other guys and spreading the ball around a little bit. Sometimes it was‑‑ Rob had the opportunity, whether it was transition or the settled offense where he created that shot. You know, you live with that. With a player like Rob Pannell I'm pretty comfortable with him shooting the ball regardless of the situation, but I know what you're saying and I agree with you in terms of sharing the ball and getting some other guys involved probably would have been a little bit better for us. Again, in that third quarter we didn't see the ball a whole lot, and we were put in a position where we had to make some plays late in the game and force the action a little bit, and that probably played a part in it. Q. What did you tell your team that led them to make that sparked comeback in the fourth quarter? BEN DeLUCA: Well, we talked about the will to win. We talked about fighting through the entire 60 minutes, sometimes 60 plus. That's just an attitude that our program has had from day one. We want to be able to fight as hard as we can and to never quit, and give our guys credit, they never did. We faced a great deal of adversity, but we never stopped believing. We made some plays down the stretch there and brought it close, just ultimately wasn't enough at the end. But credit our guys for believing that they would be able to make plays and get back into it through the end, and I think we did. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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