SENIOR FORWARD HARRISON SHIPP On winning Notre Dame and head coach Bobby Clark’s first national championship: “I think this program has known for the last few years that we were heading in the right direction … we had a great regular season and we realized it was time for the program to take that next step, and we thought the only logical place to do that was to reach the final four and win a national championship. And to do it for our coach is amazing. I think he’s probably the most underappreciated college soccer coach in the country, in terms of lessons he teaches you on the field and off the field. I can tell you that I’m a much better person and player than I was three and a half years ago when I came in.” On going out on top as a senior: “It’s pretty awesome, to be honest. We experienced a lot of pain our first three years … we realized that if we wanted to make that next jump, it was all 30 guys on the team, not just the 11 that played or the 21 that dressed, but all 30 guys … I think we showed that over the past five games.” On the soccer culture at Notre Dame:
CONNOR KLEKOTA
THE THE NCAA 2013 CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHTING IRISH
“Seeing [the women’s team] win our freshman year, it almost makes you - I don’t know if `jealous’ is the right word - but it makes you want to experience that same feeling … I think witnessing that firsthand and the excitement of people watching on campus … I remember being in the dorms and everyone on campus was watching it, even if they didn’t follow women’s soccer throughout the whole year. I hope that people back on campus really followed us over the last five games, and especially here at the College Cup. I think that’s something that we wanted to strive for and hopefully reached.”
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