I look at it as wide open. The mentality has to be, if we play well, we'll be in the game. Instead of worrying about the other team, we should be worrying about ourselves.

I'm proud of the effort they gave to get prepared. They worked on their game at the Hamilton Golf Center. They used video equipment to break down their swing. They took private lessons. They had great commitment, and as a coach that's all you can ask for.

It really comes back to things we can control. Playing defense and communicating are two things we need to work on. I look at it as a challenge. It's things we can fix, and I'm hoping sooner than later. I'm the coach. I have to keep stressing this in practice.

They play such good defense. It's a lesson for the girls out there. That's how you play defense ? in your face, physical. That's why they're one of the best teams in the state.

They make me want to practice more. I don't want to lose to the kids and I don't want to hear it from them.

Our defense all year hasn't been where it needs to be. In the fourth quarter, we showed signs of playing better defense. It's been a struggle all year.

Our defense still isn't anywhere near where I hoped it would be at this point. That needs to get better.

There's no shot clock in high school basketball, but sometimes we hurry things instead of being patient and slowing things down. We do play with a lot of energy at times. Sometimes it's too quick and too soon. It was nothing Princeton did in the second half. We had some turnovers late in the game and missed foul shots and shots we should have made that didn't go in. Hopefully, we can continue to learn from this. We're not learning from our mistake as quickly as we need to. Certainly, the effort is there from the girls.

You can't coach during a match, so hopefully some of the things you talk about sink in. After the match we talk about what happened, what went wrong, and it usually comes down to course management.

We learned from Tuesday (against Hightstown). We didn't get the job done in crunch time against Hightstown. We said before the game that Saturday should be another competitive game. In crunch time, we learned how to get the job done. We played better defense and made some timely shots.