Lights FC Head Coach Dennis Sanchez
On his overall impressions on the match…
It was probably too open for my liking. It was one of those games where every time we broke their press, we felt like we could score. In reality, there were probably some really good opportunities we wish we could have back tonight. At the same time, just cleaning it up to where we can play more in our attacking half, have more control in transition. We talked about a few things at halftime about how we can be more efficient with our press. It was unfortunate to give up the goal in the timing that we did coming right out of the weather delay, but to be fair to the guys, they earned nothing less than a point tonight. They’re gutted in that they feel there were a couple more points up for grabs.
On the difficulty of restarting a match after a lengthy weather delay…
It’s all mindset. It’s one thing if you know in 30 minutes that you can come right back out, but we were told multiple times that we could come back out and then there was more lightning. You have to control the controllables. We had time to go over more detail with the players. It’s not easy to travel yesterday and come out and have a long delay, but I think the guys overall handed it well.
On Nicholas Ammeter standing on his head in goal…
Nick stepped up for us tonight. That’s what we need our goalkeepers to do. There’s no way we could get through the season without depending on them. It was a great night for him.
On the lively substitute performance from Christian Pinzón…
He’s just a footballer. He’s got good instincts, reads the game well, has a high-level IQ. He’s still very much regaining his fitness, but there’s no doubt he’s going to give us something different down the stretch.
On becoming more difficult to beat with just one loss in the last six matches…
The challenge that we’ve posed to the group is that we have to start to take our performances and turn them into wins. That takes having more complete performances, being better in all phases: transition, attack, without the ball. The guys are building confidence. They know that they can play with anybody. It’s just making sure that the details are right and making sure that we’re executing the game plan.
On a crucial three-game homestand starting on Tuesday against the Colorado Springs Switchbacks…
We have to start recovery immediately. We’ll travel back tomorrow, but we’ll take it one game at a time. Anytime we can play in front of our home fans is a great thing for us.
