The following are quotes from the Dec. 2 Women’s College Cup press conference for finalist North Carolina. North Carolina Coach Anson Dorrance’s opening statement Obviously we’re ecstatic to be in the finals, advancing through a very tough bracket. Having Notre Dame in your bracket is no easy task. We certainly felt the pressure of their wonderful team in the first half yesterday. We’re thrilled to have recovered from that and play a better second half to basically still be alive in this tournament. Dorrance on whether senior midfielder Laurie Schwoy can play in the final She lets us know in the warm-up whether she can go. We just wait until then. We have a game plan if she can play and a game plan if she can’t. We wouldn’t be here if she weren’t playing this year. She’s one of the best attacking headers I’ve ever coached. Dorrance on who will win the national player of the year awards I think Anne [Makinen of Notre Dame] probably will. One of the difficulties in winning a national player of the year award is that you have to have a glorius junior year. Your junior year puts you on the map, puts you on the ballot. Once you’re on the ballot and have a great senior year, you sort of reap all of the rewards. I completely feel that she is a wonderful candidate. She is one of the greatest collegiate midfielders that I’ve ever seen. Although I genuinely feel that Meredith [Florance of UNC] is having a player of the year season. She is the national scoring leader [in total goals] on a team that plays one of the toughest schedules in the country. I think she should be under consideration for some of the awards. Dorrance on being perceived as the favorite instead of as the underdog Every coach tries to come in as an underdog. We’re the No. 5 seed and UCLA is No. 6. There is a huge discrepancy there. You’ve saddled us as the favorite when we were 5 and they [Notre Dame] were 1. So I assume if we’re 5 and [UCLA is] 6, we are going to be continued to be saddled with that. We’ll try to figure out a way to come in as an underdog now. Dorrance on how Carolina’s extensive postseason experience will play into the title game The University of Florida swept in a couple of years ago. I don’t think they’d ever been to the final four and, bang, bang, and they swept through it [and won the 1998 NCAA championship]. UCLA is having that kind of season. I certainly wouldn’t count them out. I watched them play for the first time yesterday and I was very impressed. They actually have a lot of our qualities. They are very athletic, they like to take on in the attacking third, they have some personality players. I liked the way they played, I liked their mentality up front and I liked their athleticism. I think they have a heck of a team. Laurie Schwoy on her health My hamstring has been giving me a bit of trouble. It feels worse than it did in the middle of the season. It felt better two weeks ago, but for some reason I’m experiencing a bit of a setback with that. It’s hard for me because I’ve dreamt of playing in this game. The one reason I’m not as miserable as I could be is because I’m surrounded by my team and that makes it tolerable and is what is keeping me sane at this point. Dorrance on his expectations against UCLA I think they are going to challenge our flat three. They are athletic and quick. We play a high-risk system. I think they’re going to present all kinds of problems to us and we’re going to have to figure out a way to solve them. They’re an excellent team and I think they’re going to come at us the way they came out against Portland. As a result, it’s going to be kind of fun for people to watch. Meredith Florance on whether Carolina expected to be in the final I don’t think we expect anything. It’s a goal obviously to get back here, but we never expect to. We work hard with that one goal in mind, to be back in the final four every year. Senior defender Julia Marslender on being in the final with three regular-season losses Dealing with three losses we had to bounce back and regroup and figure some things out. Our first goal was to win the ACC championship and take each game one at a time and never look past each game. We’re just happy to be in the final four and in the final tomorrow. We took some hard hits. We just had to figure things out. Obviously the ACC is getting stronger. We didn’t like to lose, but it’s good that women’s soccer is growing.