The Red Stars played the Washington Spirit to a 0-0 draw Wednesday, June 8. The team was able to walk away with one point despite multiple chances to score and win the match. Afterwards, Coach Chris Petrucelli and players Danielle Colaprico and Vanessa DiBernardo spoke to reporters about the team’s performance. Here’s what they had to say:
On the team’s performance (from Sandra Herrera)
Chris: Certainly wanted to take it to them in the first half, there’s no doubt. When you saw the team in the second half you knew what was coming on for them. We didn’t go into the second half trying to survive, might’ve looked that way. We didn’t want it to look that way, but they certainly had some good play in the second half.
On the team’s match load (from Sandra Herrera)
Danny: I think we came out strong and had a couple of chances to end the game, but we didn’t and they held on in the second half. Our legs got a little heavy and it’s always hard for a midweek game especially with the amount of minutes some of us played. But I think as a whole we did a good job to come away with a point.
Vanessa: I’ll echo what Danny said. It’s a lot of games in a short amount of time and a lot of minutes, and when it comes to the end of the game we just have to stick together and communication has been key for us. The back three have been great in communicating to Danny and I and we’re trying to talk to the people in front of us. It’s a lot of games but any point matters. One point is obviously not three, but we’ll take it.
On the physical play Danny faced (from Hernan Espinoza Jr.)
Danny: Definitely took a few hits, but I'm fine. I think as a whole we’re a little bit exhausted, but it’ll be good to have a little more than two days of rest before the next one. We need to get three points on the weekend and that’s what we’ll focus on. We’re going to have to grind it out and stick together and help wherever we need on the field.
On the missed scoring chances (from Zachary Draves)
Danny: It’s hard when you get a lot of chances and they’re not going to the back of the net, it’s hard to keep going but I think we do a good job as a team to keep going and put our heads down to keep creating those chances. As I mentioned before, it is a midweek game and it’s hard to create those chances throughout the full 90 minutes, but I think we showed a lot of good things this game and we’re going to carry that over to the Orlando game on Sunday.
On the upcoming Orlando match (from Sandra Herrera)
Chris: remember last time we sat here and I said “three days should be ok?” I was way wrong. As I see our team tonight, we have to freshen up our team a little bit and I was hoping the extra day would help us, but certainly we’ll have to freshen up the team some. Obviously we have players that didn’t get in tonight that have done well. We have enough depth where we can maybe rotate a little bit. The last time we played Orlando was a strange game. We were up three nil late, they scored two and we scored again. All kinds of crazy stuff happened in the last 15 minutes. I know they’ve had some turnover there and I expect their team to respond so we expect it to be a challenge.
On coming out with one point (from Hernan Espinoza Jr.)
Chris: We’ve played Washington twice. They’re a good team and they’re not where they want to be in the standings, but they will be and we’ve taken two points off of them. It’s ok, it’s not ideal, but it isn’t a killer for us. We know they’re a good team and we know they’ll go on and do well.
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