Joe Battista Quotations

I think in the end, in the future this team is going to make things happen.

I think it's awfully difficult for one goalie to play four games in four days. I don't care who you are. It's very difficult to do that.

We have our fate in our own hands, and I like that. We can't blame anybody but ourselves with the outcome of the weekend. Hopefully, we'll be patting ourselves on the back if we get the job done.

Those guys have only been together for a couple of weeks and they look like they've been together all year.

Well it could be. Rhode Island has been the younger team, and they matured. They're an older, more mature team, and it paid off.

We've spent the whole week working on defense. Everything we've been doing has been working on defense.

We did that on purpose. We wanted to give them baptism by fire and I'd say so far we passed the test so far.

We are a very average team when we try to go by ourselves -- when we move the puck; we're awesome. I don't know what happened, if they see the big crowd and decide they're going to go Hollywood on us.

The three of them slammed the door on a very good offensive hockey team, blocking shots and doing whatever they had to do.

When we played them at Rhode Island, they were faster than us. They were more physical than us. They played better defense than us. They had better special teams than us. But we've gotten a lot better in all those areas.

They all handle the puck. They all help each other get the puck. They have a tremendous work ethic, and they are very unselfish, and they all have skill. Those guys have only been together for a couple of weeks, and they look like they've been together all year.

Offensively, I'm very, very happy to see us continue to move the puck, and a lot of different guys scored -- but man, defensively, we've got to get better. We absolutely have to get better on defense.

Our defense was terrific. They didn't get many shots through and when they did, Chris was outstanding. He played with confidence and handled the rebounds really well. It was just a good overall performance.

Ohio did us a favor by beating Illinois twice, now we have to take care of business. I could try to describe to somebody what it feels like to be in these kind of games, but until they're out there -- you just have to experience it. I don't want them too fired up, but I don't want them scared either.

Don't count Duquesne out. They've gone through some turmoil. Sometimes teams like that can...

It's very hard to lose when you know you should have won.

It was good to see that start clicking. It just looked a lot better.

I know it hurts now, but you have to focus on what we've accomplished.

I just feel so bad for this team; they just couldn't get a break. It's a young team, so it's going to be a good team in the future.

It was a great weekend to be a coach from Penn State named Joe.

It was a great start. I think we feel like we exorcised the demons from our lackluster performance against St. Clair.

The most impressive thing to me is how the guys have jelled in such a short period of time. There are no egos on this team.

Anthony, you're playing your angles correctly. If you weren't, those go in.

You could tell he was frustrated. It never stopped him from working hard, blocking shots, talking out on the ice, leading by example for the younger guys. He kept a positive attitude and was actually making light of it for a while, but I'm glad he loosened up, and I'm glad to see he's broken the slump.

It's a long time coming. You guys have a great program.

It ranks in the top ten victories in my 19 years at Penn State. I couldn't be happier for the players.

There were two seconds on the clock when we iced it, and there was time on the clock when they scored the goal. The referee waved it off, the net was off and a linesman comes in and talks to the referee, and that shouldn't happen.