Defense is definitely carrying us. At times we just can't put the ball in the ocean. We keep finding ways with our defense to hold teams down enough to give our offense a chance to create or get something to go in.

That we won with our defense, that's no surprise. North has better shooters than we do. We just hoped we could score enough to stay in the game, then win it with defense.

Tonight her defense was still pretty special. Tonight she also had to take on offense, she had to handle the ball a lot against the press. We had a lot of inexperience out there, and Ashley had to go back and control some of that.

She's a common force for us. The younger kids were so nervous. There was so much pressure because all of our guards are our young kids. They've never played in a do-or-die situation.

With the lineup we had out there, we really didn't feel like we had a choice. Brittany (Powell) and Erica aren't our two quickest players, so we had to play a zone just to keep (Ledford) contained.

We played aggressively. Some people may not believe this, but the upset didn't happen tonight. I feel the upset was when they beat us. That night we shot ourselves out of it and beat ourselves.