Postgame Quotes
Johnson City, Tenn. | Brooks Gymnasium
January 17, 2026
Final: Chattanooga 53, ETSU 41

Head Coach Deandra Schirmer
Opening Statement
"I think that we've talked about how every game is going to go differently. It's going to take on a life of its own. Would I have liked to hit shots and, you know, spread the court and get out and transition and score a lot of points? Yeah, I would have. But we knew, you know, as soon as Kalifa (Ford) went down, that we were gonna be a shortened bench, so we had to slow up the game. We had to make every single play intentional. And for our team to, you know, come out, and I think we gave up 21 points in the first quarter, and then the rest of the game, only give up 20. Yeah, I think that just speaks for itself for us to be able to lock in. Obviously, we got to come out and play better in the first quarter, but credit to ETSU, they're a tough team. They play hard. They are never defeated."

On the phrase of "winning ugly" discrediting what this team has done lately
I agree with you, because listen, Falon (Bedke), literally was the one who really sparked our run on the defensive end, and then here comes Flo (van der Schans) doing stuff offensively, getting rebounds. And let me tell you, that is beautiful to see everybody contribute, everybody come in and make an impact. And I like that. I like winning. How about we just win? Yeah, or winning by any means necessary, you know?"

On playing some zone defense 
"Credit Alexis Uffman. Everybody has their jobs, and sometimes their number is not called. So the number of zone was called tonight, and Alexis has been coaching us, and we've been prepping it and all that kind of stuff, and we're like, we'll have it in our back pocket if we need it. Sure enough, we needed it to slow down the bleeding after the first. And, you know, it was just fantastic from there, and it got them unconfident." 

Caia Elisaldez, Jr., Guard

On the phrase of "winning ugly" discrediting what this team has done lately
"I don't like that statement either. I don't think it's fun to use. I think it kind of sucks to hear too. I think I would change it to, like, winning gritty. Like, we're real gritty with it. I mean, we make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, but it's the fact that we're not afraid to have a challenge to come back to it. We're not afraid to keep working for it. And I think that's one thing about our team is we don't say no."

On how good their defense has been recently
"Our defense is what's carrying us. Coach D, all of our coaches are huge defensive coaches. They always say defense wins games. I mean, you hear every coach say that, but I think our coaches take that so deeply and they make sure that we know, like, we're not just going to roll the balls out and go win a game. We need to fight for it. We need to be gritty. And that came from defense."

On Izzy McPherson's performance
When Kalifa (Ford) did go down, Coach D literally said, like, three words, light this up. That was it. And all of a sudden, Izzy went, she got an and one, she had a three. I was like, oh, Izzy took that real personal. So it's like, that was like the spark that we needed. And all of us knew when one goes down or even just when one's struggling, like, we need to stick together even more. So credit to Izzy for feeling a very big role, but not in a Kalifa way, in an Izzy way. I'm very proud of her."

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