It was our best first period of the season. I was really pleased with it since that's something we have been talking about in our locker room before each game, getting off to a good start.

This is a new season. What happened before is history. It's one and done and you have to go out and play every game like its the most important.

It was two of my better years of my life. Coach Stratton was a motivator and recruited some talent you wouldn't believe for a small school.

We're excited about this game. We're excited about the opportunity to play a team like Lemoore. Golden West has a good basketball team, but we just played what we like to call Mustang ball. We're a tough team to beat when we play like this.

We have to play well as a team. If we play together and follow the game plan, we'll do fine. If we defer away from the game plan, then we'll struggle.

Our big three players did well, but everybody played well for us tonight.

I thought Cottrell stepped up really well today with the rebounding and his defensive intensity on the court.

It is a little bit worse than last year. Cesar Chavez is going to be a challenge in league, and obviously Union is again too. We have some tough games left in this tournament.

He was demanding and you had to play hard, but he was also fair. He got results - winning covers a lot of stuff.

No excuses this time. All of us have been up there and know what it's like to play on that court, to play under those lights, and to play in front of a big crowd. I think our team will go out there and treat it like another basketball game they need to win ?nothing more.