9 Quotes by Kurt Ruth

We were a lot closer than we were farther away, and I'm proud of our effort. Rancho Verde is no slouch. At the beginning of the season, I knew it would be a dogfight twice. One went their way and one went our way.

I have confidence in our guys, and we shot free throws well during practice (Thursday). We are usually better then we were tonight, but some nights are better than others.

I feel like the key was our relentless pressure. We played 12 guys and kept rotating guys in to keep the pressure on. They're a little inexperienced, so we wanted to make it as hard as we could.

The Rancho Verde game Tuesday was a big game emotionally. I'm glad we played Murrieta Valley. If we played someone else (Friday night), I don't know if we'd have come back. But because we were playing them, it made it easy to bounce back.

We knew that would be our strength, and every time we got the ball inside good things were happening. We missed some easy ones, but we got the ball right back.

(The Titans) changed some shots, and at times, we were looking for someone to come over. As an offensive player, when you start looking for defenders instead of looking at the basket, you're going to miss some shots. Most of the credit goes to their defense.

(Temecula) wasn't hitting their shots tonight, but you don't have to shoot great if you're getting second and third chances. But it wasn't for lack of effort. The guys were in there fighting.

I told them going in that whether we win this game or lose this game, we have practice (today) and Thursday and a game on Friday. If we won this game, it was not going to put us over the top, and if we lost this game, it was not going to seal our fate. In our league, if you let one loss go into another, then you're in trouble. Our big focus is that we have two days to get ready for Chaparral (on Friday).

It was great to win a quarter decisively, and that was our goal at halftime. We were in a good position (in the fourth quarter), but (Rancho Verde's) athleticism started to show in the fourth, and they turned it up a notch.