 With head coach Jackie Boswell following the Merriman to Stevenson basketball game I gotta tell you something that after that first quarter I thought the resilience and the defensive pressure that you guys put on Merriman was superb So there's a lot to take away from this game. Yeah, I agree I mean you can't dig yourself in that way your hole against a really good team like Merriman I thought that we you know something did come over us and the defense I'm trying to convince them that that's gonna be missing easy shots and stuff You just got to try to keep getting easier ones. It's got to be reliable So that we did a much better job in the second half. We held a leading score Kelly Kelly held a leading score So just six points. So that was that was really big for us And so definitely something to capitalize on forward from you know, you never accept the loss But as long as we learn from it's not a loss Yeah, and there's so many young ladies to talk about but I do want to talk about Kelly Johnson because I mean She was going up against it all American Katie Katie McShay is a double-double machine She never could really get on track and it wasn't only Kelly Johnson Because when you double-teamed her your triple-teamed her you helped. I mean it was really a team effort I agree. Yes, and I think Kelly would say that too, but you know the game plan to just execute it perfectly They all did on that section of it and I thought we did a really good job And you know really having to play without Olivia There was a quick turnaround and try to make some adjustments, and I thought you know I thought they did a really good job Lacey Johnson off the bench again came in and she looks like she can be a player First two games in this tournament. She's been shooting very well Yeah, she's you know playing with a lot of confidence which is really good She's not really playing like a freshman, which is nice to see as well And so you know she's just showing a lot of confidence out there. She's taking good shots She's still taking the offense for us, and she's really picking up a little defense event too So yeah, so you're always thinking as a coach You're always planning ahead, and you've got your first two games You get a little bit of a break here. You don't have Olivia Coleman I don't know what she's coming back. Maybe you don't either at this point What are you thinking right now about your team as you move forward? Well, I think you know the challenge at halftime was how tough are we? Are we going to get in a hole and just you know kind of give the game up? Or are we going to fight for it? So the one thing that we learned is something you can't teach that we're going to fight for it So all the stuff that we did very well tonight we can fix in practice because their mentality is there to fix it now All right, so that's good. We wish you luck the rest of the way. Great, thank you What a performance by this young lady number 20 Kelly Johnson who held their All-American Katie McShay And let's talk about that this game against Merrimack was not an easy game You've done yourself a hole in the first quarter, but after that you have to be really proud of the way your team responded Yeah, absolutely. I think starting out we did we were a little slow But we knew that as soon as we got the defensive end to turn up for us Then we go ahead and move on offense and sure enough as soon as we started to get steals You noticed all of our shots started to fall. We couldn't really make layups in the first half And then it just clicked for us. So it was definitely the defense that led to our offense today Yeah, no doubt about it. I want to specifically talk about your defense on Katie McShay She came in with the great reputation and it's well learned. What did you think you had to do today to make it difficult for her? Yeah, absolutely. We knew losing Olivia yesterday to an injury. Hopefully she'll be back soon Yeah, we're definitely gonna have to box out really hard and force her to go right She really likes to go left and I knew if she got me left She's making a way of moving out so favor her left side and then really rely on our guards to go ahead and dig in You whittled down a 24 point deficit in the second half all the way down to nine And then had the basketball with a chance to get it down further turnovers were an issue We know that but just the confidence that the team had coming back from that part Yeah, definitely. Again, it's just in our defense as soon as we started to heat up We all felt it everyone was charged up our bench was charged up our coaches were charged up We did fall a little bit short. We had it within single digits We wish to obviously make it a little bit closer, but we now know that we have it. We're capable of things and moving forward It's definitely gonna be a learning point that we Thanks so much