On City’s defensive effort:
“I think our defense all game long, we gave up a little ground there for sure, but that’s credit to Bethlehem. They’re a good team and we knew they were going to come in and be a team that could possess the ball and find pockets. We just didn’t want to give up anything super dangerous and I don’t think we really did. There was one moment we got caught in transition – I think it was the 18th minute – that I wasn’t really pleased about. But aside from that, I thought all game long, really solid effort from our whole team on the defensive side of it which is a credit to them because I think, again, Bethlehem is a really good team and especially dangerous in transition. They have some dangerous, attacking players and really happy with that.”
On Brian Ownby finally scoring after being shutout through regular season play:
“It’s about time. I’m just joking. Teasing him because he’s done such a good job recently and he just hasn’t found the back of the net. He just hasn’t found that assist. All the time I say, ‘Look, it’s coming. It’s going to come and when it does, no better time than to do it in a playoff game like this’. So hopefully that opens up and I’ve said it in another context about Cam [Lancaster] being the guy that always scores, but we have guys that’ll step up in those moments and I think tonight was a night where Brian [Ownby] steps up. Last week was Niall [McCabe]. We can hurt you in a variety of ways and that’s – somebody had asked, ‘How can we get better?’ Well, that’s how we can get better. We can just make sure we share it around a little more and whoever gets that final act puts it in the back of the net.”
On the chance to host the Eastern Conference finals:
“It was a little nervous energy to be fair. But it was the right nervous energy because we had to respect Bethlehem. When you watch and literally see that Cincy loses that game and it gives a little bit – maybe we should be humble about this. Maybe we should make sure that that doesn’t happen to us. That’s the way I took it. That’s the message I tried to get to our guys and I think they took it in the right way and just focused on taking care of business here.”
