March 23, 2004Head Coach Rene Portland
"We're thrilled, we're exhausted, Virginia Tech played an absolutely terrific game. The atmosphere was really wonderful. Our team was really pushed to the limit in the second half and we depended on something that has gotten us this far and that's our defense. We felt in the first half defensively we weren't all that bad, but offensively we weren't being ourselves. Both of them clicked very well in the second half and we're thrilled to be going up to Connecticut."
"I do think the team rallied around that [the first half technical foul] because at the time the situation really wasn't that fair."
"In Kelly's [Mazzante] case when her head was going down a little bit I just grabbed her and talked to her and said keep shooting and I thought she hit some clutch shots. If I'm the other coach and all of sudden Kelly Mazzante starts hitting I go 'oh man this is really bad.' She came to life in the second half for us."
"We run a whole lot of stuff for her [Tanisha Wright]. She's the most improved player I've ever coached. From summer to summer she comes back with a different part of her game even better."
"I do think tonight's game was about conditioning and about our weight training program. Our kids were in shape that they could take the hits. I do think that they're strength and conditioning was a big part with the heat in this building. Our two coaches that take care of that did an excellent job for us."
"Most teams have one player that can play defense and we have Tanisha [Wright] and Kelly's [Mazzante] a nice backup for Tanisha. When teams spend that much energy going after Kelly it really does open things up for other people. When Kelly was a sophomore, when people went after Kelly we had nothing. We really learned as a team to be better when something happens to Kelly, whether people are playing her or she's just having a tough night. Tanisha and Jess know that they need to get the job done."
Penn State Student-Athlete Kelly Mazzante
"They were playing pretty physical. I had quite a few layups that I missed that are uncharacteristic. But these two [Strom and Wright] really carried us. Sitting there watching Tanisha play kept putting a smile on my face and I just knew that we were going to be okay with the way she was playing."
"It [the home crowd] causes a challenge. We've been in situations where we're facing teams on the road. We know we have to take care of ourselves. It pulled us together as a team and we took some positives out of it."
Penn State Student-Athlete Jess Strom
"You always have to focus on Kelly [Mazzante], she can hit shots at any time and I think when people lay off me that's my chance to score and I just looked for it."
"Kelly's shots aren't always going to fall and we didn't think anything of it. She's going to hit them in the second half and that's what I thought, she's going to keep shooting, some of them are going to have to fall."
Penn State Student-Athlete Tanisha Wright
"We just needed someone to step up and I'm always looking for my shot and I just happened that tonight it was going in."
"I think it a great thing that we're back [in the Sweet 16]. But we're not satisfied, we have goals and we have to keep to those goals if we want to be considered an elite program. We're going to go back, we're going to practice and work on those things we need to work on."
"I always anticipate I can do things like that, I just look for my opportunities and they were giving them to me tonight so I took advantage of them."
"I think we just played good defense. We came out with a game plan and we abided by it. We're not the type that pressures in your face, but I think we get into the passing lanes, get our hands on some balls and things like that."
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