John Bluem Quotations

I feel really sorry for our players, they played a great game. They gave a tremendous effort and I have seen a lot of improvement. I am very confident in our players and I think we are going to have a great season.

I want to thank the Crew for continuing to support this game. It's wonderful for them to keep contributing to this type of game and it really shows how the soccer community really is. Thanks to the fans for everything. We're very happy and we hope the event keeps growing. I hope everyone tells their friends so it will grow even more next year.

We have a tough game with a very good New Mexico team on Sunday. If we had lost or tied tonight, I don't think we would have the same confidence going in.

We have to remember that we were 12-7-2 last year, not 17-3-1. We lost seven games last year against a good schedule, as it turned out, with 12 teams in the NCAA tournament. We went 6-6 against those 12 teams, so we need to be better than that. That's the challenge before the players. We just had a good year. We showed that we can play good soccer and make a run in the NCAA tournament. Now are we going to be able to reproduce the same kind of effort?

Xavier was very sharp tonight. He was in the right spot and made some great runs into the penalty area. And (Kevin) Nugent had two very good passes to help set him up.

What we're trying to achieve here is consistency. We want to be in the NCAA tournament every year. Four of the last six is a good start. Next year, three in a row would be the first time Ohio State has done that. It's a lofty goal and it's not going to be easy. Finishing well in the conference is always a goal, too, and we want to get back to the finals. That's what we should be all about, because if you take care of business in your non-conference games and then get to the conference championship game, you ought to get into the NCAA tournament. Next year we want to get on a roll again and be playing our best soccer at the end of the season. That will be important.

We are very excited for the two of them. They and their parents have put in a lot of time and work and energy. It's a fantastic thing and great for our program. It's a wonderful opportunity for those two guys.

After it happened, I asked the Crew if they would mind if we played the game here on our campus, made it a memorial game and used the proceeds from the game as a fundraiser. They have been unbelievably supportive and fantastic in their efforts to raise awareness of the game, to participate in the game, etc. So our hats go off to the Crew for all of their help.

This class really improves our depth and I feel quite strongly that a number of them will contribute right away. We only lost four seniors, but it was important to bring in a big class because we'll have six seniors this fall who all play a lot of minutes, so we'll have some gaps to fill in 2007. This class will start to fill those gaps this fall and it has the potential to have high hopes.

It's a neat thing just the way its evolved and the growth that the game has taken in trying to be a legitimate fundraiser. It's a very good effort to have a lasting memory of Connor, raise money for his scholarship funds, and it's a good thing for the soccer community.

We just hope that the Ohio State University community comes out and that the weather is good. We're hoping that we could raise close to $20,000 this year in one night. The bigger the crowd the better, so we hope the community and the students come out to support this great cause.