NCAA Men’s Soccer Championship Postgame Quotes
Second Round
#3 Kentucky vs. Portland
The Bell – Lexington, Ky.
Nov. 18, 2018
UK Head Coach Johan Cedergren
Opening Statement …
“Very proud of the guys, very proud of the whole squad and the staff. I think that it’s been a really really fun year to this point. Very very proud of my captains, Tanner (Hummel) and JJ (Williams) of course but also Key (Namjoupanah) who to come in on short notice today with Cole (Guindon)’s injury. Thought he did a fantastic job at left back. It’s just something we’ve been working on all year, just tried to get better every week. This week we were talking about making sure that we got to train on Monday because again that means that you get to advance in the tournament. Just really proud of the guys, I think we’ve had a really good year. Fourteen clean sheets shows the mentality that we have on the squad in regards to everyone doing the defending and even the forwards, like JJ, there aren’t too many set pieces that JJ doesn’t win the header on. Again, just really excited to train again on Monday.”
On big of a win it is for him and the program …
“No, it’s been a long seven years. I was talking to Mitch and he was showing me a photo in regards to Senior Day in football and how he’s grayed a lot with the players he’s had on the football team and I think that, for me, it’s thinning a lot back here and I think that it’s one of those where it’s the best job and the worst job at times and I think that’s for different reasons in regards to injuries and those kinds of things. Probably Tanner, being 2015 or 2016 going into it thought we were going to advance and we didn’t, and again I’m sitting to my left with a captain who has two regular season titles, a conference tournament title, and now he gets to advance in the NCAA tournament. I think that goes back to, despite those frustrations that we’ve had year after year, we kept going back to the drawing board, we tweaked things, we kept pushing and these guys, again talking about freezing, when we’re out in February doing team competitions with sleds and their running in the Arboretum and they’re doing pull ups, I think there are so many programs in the country that they don’t understand the value of that. If you can find a way to push through in February, well now of course you’re going to push through at home on one of the best fields in the country and in front of the Big Blue Nation. I just think that, again, it’s really nice to be sitting here finally having an NCAA win, but at no point did I think that we weren’t going to be able to get over the hump. It’s just about being injury free, and we have been for mostly this year, so we’re just really happy to be playing again next week.”
UK junior forward #7 JJ Williams
On the team’s play in big games this season …
“I think that obviously you see all of the results that we’ve been getting, the performances that we’ve been putting up, but really it just comes in the preparation that we put in the week before. We had a long week this week to prepare. We knew it was going to be a tough one going in. Thankfully, we got scoring and once we did, it was rolling, but the battle from the start of the game. Portland is a good program, a good team. I just thought we stepped up, we prepared really well, and our guys just put us in a great position to be successful. As he said, 14 clean sheets, that’s a number that’s amazing, so from the back line and scoring four goals, I think that we’re a pretty dynamic team, we’re a complete team and definitely whenever you give us opportunities, especially at this point in the season, we’re really focusing on we have to be able to punish, to be able to finish games, and I thought that’s what we did tonight.”
On Kalil ElMedkhar and his’ impact on the game tonight …
“We’re the ones that end up scoring the goals or having the assists, but at the same time, I think if they don’t score then you’re going to be in every single game. Just as much as it’s me or Kalil have been scoring recently, there’s just so many guys that put us in situations to be successful, and that’s what we’re really thankful for. There are so many guys that don’t have their name out there that should be. They really should be. From Leon [Jones], who’s one of the best defenders in the conference, Tanner [Hummel] who hasn’t made any of the all-conference teams or any of that. It’s just really, really impressive what we’re doing, what we’re putting together and just some great performances from everybody, and thankfully they just put us in good position to finish.”
UK senior defender #22 Tanner Hummel
On the opportunity to play at home …
“Whenever you have the opportunity to play at home, it is a huge advantage because you have the upper hand no matter what school. Every single home team will have the home-field advantage. Here at The Bell, like JJ (Williams) said, we have been having some great turnouts. The fans at The Bell have been a big key to our success because as soon as they start getting loud, we start feeding off the energy and luckily we got a goal out of it and we just kept going from there. I was pretty pleased. I think home field advantage is a huge thing. I am glad that we got a No. 3 seed so that we can go far and then just keep going.”
On UK’s history in this round of the NCAA Tournament …
“We just go day by day. We set goals throughout the whole year, like what we wanted to do, and it started with this past spring. Me and JJ (Williams) and a couple of other players were out there freezing and we were like ‘man, we need to run through this if we want to do something special next year, it starts now.’ I just think it is all the preparation of the past year that got us to where we are now. Our coach, he pushes us all the time. He wants us to have the best performance that we can. We have a great team here no matter what. If we preform our best, the sky is the limit here. We have no idea where we could end up, but we definitely set up goals throughout the year like we wanted to win The Conference regular and post season (championships) and just keep going and going from game to game. Don’t live in the past. You have to live in the present.”
