Sept. 10, 2011

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Coastal Carolina vs. Catawba
Sept. 10, 2011
Brook Stadium - Benton Field
Conway, S.C.
Post-game Quotes

Coastal Carolina head Coach David Bennett:
Opening statement:
"Going into this football game right here I said, "I hope our guys realize that they need to be ready to play because I knew that crowd would come and play." We told you while we were at Catawba; the crowd comes and is expecting a win. They came here with all intent to win. Thank goodness our defense played good enough to win. Our offense just spit and sputtered and would get something going and wouldn't run the ball well against their defense. Catawba was very good on their rush defense. They did a great college and have to give them credit; they played a good football game.

On the flow of the game:
"I was pleased with the first half, but you have to put points on the board. A couple times we got field goals where we wanted to get touchdowns. We got a drive going down there in the second half and lost the ball. This week we turned the ball over three times tonight. We need to take care of the ball and the last time I checked, that ball has a Chanticleer on it and we have to protect it."

Defensive end Chris Thomas
On the performance of the team:
"I performance was a little sloppy. We had a lot of turnovers. The defense was strong though. We had a lot of three-and-outs. We stopped them probably about 10 times. Overall, our defense did pretty good. We had a lot of missed tackles, but we all ran to the ball hard and fast. I feel it was a pretty good performance."

Linebacker Derrick Frasier
On keeping them scoreless in the 2nd half:
"For the defense, it was a great accomplishment. We wish we could have held them to zero points. We are satisfied with this. It is a great challenge to hold any team to three or zero points. We are excited about this achievement."

Defensive tackle Chad McField
On the overall defensive performance:
"The defense works hard and it was a team effort. There is going to be times when the offense doesn't put a lot on the board, but that doesn't change the defense. We go out and give it our all and the offense does the same and it worked out for the best."

Quarterback Aramis Hillary
Overview of the game:
"We started off real well, but ended slow. We definitely have to pick it up. In the second half, we didn't put anything on the board. However, a win is a win. We can't be too happy about this win, but it goes in as a "W" in the win column. So we can kind of celebrate a little bit."

On the second half:
"Maybe we got a little too comfortable. We didn't really put the dagger in the heart. I think we just got way to comfortable and we need to have more of a killer instinct."

Catawba Head Coach Chip Hester
About how he thought the game went:
"I thought we played as physical as can be, I thought we were aggressive, and that's what we wanted, but we just have our issues on offense right now. I think our guys played hard, just made too many mistakes, turning the ball over and not being efficient in the red zone, and that's frustrating.

We are struggling right now to find somebody to make a play, and the frustrating part is we're having some mental breakdowns, and that comes on me as a coach, we just have to find something that we can hang our hat on. We've got some young guys up front, and they're fighting like crazy, but we've got to find something that we can say this is what we are and this is how we are going to put it in the end zone."

On not going for field goal before halftime:
"Sitting here right now, we probably should have just kicked it, we felt like we needed to score some touchdowns, and again, going into it, we're playing against a playoff, FCS team you have to be aggressive, we were going to kick it, they called time out, and then we said, you know what, lets just go for it, and we had the play we wanted, and it just didn't quite work out. They had some great pressure, and we didn't execute exactly like I wanted it to be executed. Obviously, now, we'd love to have kicked the field goal, and put some points on the board."

On how the defense played:
"When you look at it, I think our defense played well enough to win tonight, and that's very frustrating when I coach the offense. I thought our defense really played outstanding, and they had some good plays, their quarterbacks are good players, and that tight end is something. You know they are going to look for him, and our coaches talked about it but overall I thought our defense played well enough to win."

On the connections between the two teams:
"It was an emotional time to play so many coaches that had Catawba connections, and Coastal connections on our staff, but I'm just proud of our guys, the way they fought. With Catawba football, we're not satisfied with losses, but I think we're getting better as a football team, and obviously we've got to execute a little bit better in the future."