From the Bench... Oct. 21, 2003– Fullerton, Calif.
Coach Al Mistri:
"We are looking at two more very difficult matches this week... at
Irvine and at home against UC Santa Barbara. We still have the season
ahead of us. Four of our remaining seven matches are against Top 20 teams,
so we have an opportunity to raise our standing in the eyes of the evaluators
-- like beating Indiana last year when we were one win short of the playoffs
"For Wednesday's match at UC Irvine, we will be without the services
of Marco Rodriguez and Hector Orellana. We tried to play them last Saturday
against Riverside, but we substituted for them. They are just unable to
play to their normal levels.
"We had two very difficult games last week at home. We got the strong
shot from (Jason) Clifford to beat Cal Poly and the Riverside game was
a case of a good shot beating us, and that's the end of that. All the
confusion without the referees Satuday certainly did not help our effort.
"I've been impressed with the play of our freshmen. We've had seven
on the field at the same time. They are very green but playing with a
lot of heart and enthusiasm. We were going to redshirt Scott Fuller and
Samuel Rivas. Taylor Sheldrick came back from being sick and did well
on the left flank. In Marco and Gordon Kljestan we have two players who
did not play last year and Amir Shafii has been in there all the way.
"We have to play better and with more consistency and maybe some
of the breaks will go in our favor. Onward and upward."
