MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER QUOTE SHEET
SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2004 - COLORADO RAPIDS 1, SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES 0
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH TIM HANKINSON
On getting the first win of the 2004 season:
"It feels good. It's a win against the defending champions and I've been telling the team all week, if you want to be the champions you have to defeat the champions."
On team injuries:
"Injuries are part of the game. We always want our best players available, but hopefully by next weekend they are doing better. And we will play them again when they are healthy. Great to see other players like Matt Crawford step in. With Darryl Powell out, we let Antonio (de la Torre) be the one who made the adjustment at midfield. We has great signs of the team building and growing and jelling and that's all very positive for us."
On the goal:
"One of the things that Chris (Henderson) does very well is that he usually strikes a very clean ball from the right side, towards the far post. We've seen him hit that shot before and he is very consistent at putting it into the back of the net. It's also great that Kyle is finding the channels to feed the ball to the forwards."
RAPIDS MIDFIELDER CHRIS HENDERSON
On his game-winning goal:
"It was a good ball through and I had plenty of time to set it up and see where the goalie was going to go. I just tried to hit it hard toward the far post. The biggest thing is that we get a win at home, three points here, and we continue our undefeated home streak."
On Beckerman's assist:
"Kyle measured it well. He didn't hit it too hard. It was a great vision. A great through ball."
On getting the win:
"It's important to get a win after getting two ties. After two games we see ourselves with two points and at the bottom of the table. But things can change in just one game. We're right in there now, back in the mix. "
RAPIDS DEFENDER PABLO MASTROENI
On his first game back:
"It was a good game. There's no better challenge than going up against last year's champions. As long as we keep improving like we're doing, I think we're doing the right things. I think the guys reacted very well to a great competitive match. It was great to back among the guys."
On the defense:
"That's obviously done from a collective defense. I think it starts with Spenny (Spencer) and Pedro (Jean-Phillipe Peguero) up top that make it predictable for us to defend in the back. The guys are working real hard. As long as we can keep coming in from halftime either nil or up one, we're in a great position to win games. The guys did a great job tonight and responded well to a great team."
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES HEAD COACH DOMINIC KINNEAR
On the game:
"I think that in the first half we did not come out with the effort that I would have expected. I was disappointed at halftime and we came out with a little push in the second half, but we did not have enough to get a result tonight."
On the attack:
"We were just a little flat in the attack and we did not create enough chances tonight to win. Last week we were excellent up front and we scored some good goals, but tonight it just wasn't there."
EARTHQUAKES MIDFIELDER BRIAN MULLAN
On coming back from an ankle injury:
"I got into training the last couple of days before the game, so I felt good enough to go tonight. Of course, I could feel it out there a little bit, but it did not affect my play tonight."
EARTHQUAKES FORWARD DWAYNE DE ROSARIO
On the game:
"We started very slowly and we were lucky not to be down by more than one goal after the first half. We paid for our slow start and we tried to play catch-up the rest of the match, but we didn't put it together. You have to give credit to Colorado, but I don't think that we played to our capabilities."
On creating chances:
"Colorado did a good job of not letting us get too many clear chances, but we have to be sharper in attack. We never gave up tonight and we had some good chances where we had guys open, but we just didn't make the final pass. I think we needed to play a little quicker in certain situations to get some goals."
