The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Nebraska quotes
11.20.2008 | Volleyball
Nov. 20, 2008
TEXAS QUOTES
HEAD COACH Jerritt Elliott
Opening statement: First and foremost we appreciate all you guys coming out. It means a lot to have this much media to promote these wonderful young women in an epic match that meant a whole lot. There was a lot riding on this and I commend my team for dealing with it and playing steady when it was for the opportunity to co-share the conference with three matches remaining and also the potential to be a number one seed. I thought we executed extremely well, we let game two get away from us and got a little bit of anxiety, but we really buckled down and challenged our passers to steady out and our setter Michelle Kocher did a phenomenal job in terms of trying to get a balance in the offense and get our middles involved. I'm very proud of this team and we have so much respect for Nebraska and the coaching staff. They played one heck of a match and Jordan Larson showed the reason she is a first-team All-American. She tried to take the team under her arms when their middle [Kori Cooper] went down and did a heck of a job. We just made some big plays at the end.
On Destinee Hooker's 12 kills in the first set: (I've seen) nothing close to that in 30 or regular scoring. But 12 in a game to 25, everything she touched was golden. She couldn't do any wrong. She had great speed, she had great attack selection, and it was a huge reason in that first game that we were able to win.
On Destinee Hooker as a player: There is no doubt that she is a very special athlete. She plays really well at home against Nebraska for some reason, and it's a positive for us. It was a pleasure to watch that game, but my concern became that we were going to rely on her too much, and that's what happened in game two. We really lost focus of our balance when our freshman setter saw it working so well, and kept going to her. We've got too many good players and Nebraska is way too good of a team and makes too many good adjustments to be able to live off of one player.
She's just a very special athlete that comes around very rarely. Being a part of the program at Texas, you sometimes are gifted like that -- you get the Vince Youngs, the Colt McCoys, the Cat Ostermans. You get that a little more often at a university that supports its women athletes so well. She's breathtaking, and she was a huge player in tonight's match.
On what let Nebraska stay in the match for as long as they did: They won the serve and pass game, there's no doubt about it. I'm not sure I've seen a better serve and pass team in the country, and that's what makes them so scary. We really struggled on the serve-receive end, and were pretty high-error in game two and not producing a lot of kills because of how far off the net we pass. That's what it becomes at this level. If you can get teams off the net at the high end, this game becomes a side-out percentage and how good you score in transition. Tonight I thought we did a really good job of siding out, outside of game number two, which was only 47 percent. Our goals are to side-out at 65 percent, and we hit 68, 72 and 65 in the games [that we won]. But our transition swings are what makes the difference at this level. I think we won that battle. I think it's tough to beat any good team when you have the number of errors they had. We blocked well and played some good defense, but the standard for us is 12 percent hitting errors, and I would gather it was about 20 to 22 percent hitting errors from them.
On where the defensive focus was throughout the match: We got some good touches early on. We worked on it all week. Lindsey [Licht] hit .500 against us [in the first matchup] and we knew that she was going to be a major gun, and they knew they had some success behind it. It was evident that they were throwing a lot of slides at us, a lot of back sets. We are physical enough to do a better job than we did at Nebraska. She had a great night, but it's different when you're playing at home. We gave her a little bit of line and blocked here a couple of times across court. She tried to press and made some hitting errors. The same thing with [Tara] Mueller.
On the defensive adjustments made in games two and three: Not a lot. We felt like they may tip a roll shot a little bit more, but in the first two games, they were hitting .111 and .135, so I felt like our defensive scheme, we reiterated where a percentage of the balls were going. We tried to make a better adjustment in terms of balancing our offense. [Jennifer] Doris wasn't involved at all, we got her going. We got Ashley [Engle] at the pin and were successful with that. It opened up some play calls with Destinee hitting some quicks on our backdoor attacks.
On the significance of the win: It's a huge win and I think, as a coach, there are a lot of coaches that look up to Nebraska's program in terms of how people cover their program, their attendance, the passion for it. To be able to get so many new people in here for a big game means a lot. It's an incredible sport and we just need more people to come. But to win that game is huge. It had not only the opportunity for us to now, if we win out, be co-champions, which is our goal. But also it had implications of a number-one seed. I think it's going to be pretty hard for the NCAA committee not to give Nebraska and us a number one seed as co-champs if we can take care of our responsibility. There is a lot of fear for me in terms of making sure there is still a lot of urgency. This was just one game, and an important game, but it's no more important than the next match.
On whether Texas deserves a number one seed: Yes, I think we deserve it. I think the strength of schedule, Washington is probably the next team in line, but they didn't really play anybody out of conference. They played Hawaii and lost, so it's hard to argue. Our conference went 3-4 against the Pac-10, and I think that's where the other number one seed would be if both of us take that. But I've never been right with the NCAA, so we'll se how they throw us around. I was thinking that if we lost this match, we could very easily see Nebraska again, or Stanford. It's great conference that we won't be facing each other, or at least I won't be facing each other.
On the fourth and final set: It was unfortunate that they lost [Kori] Cooper. We felt like we could spread the offense a little bit and give Ashley some range. She probably has our best range as an attacker. Nebraska did a good job of following us on that, and when that happens, two blockers in front of us, our attackers are supposed to go high and deep. Ashley did a really good job. We got another free ball and went to her again, just figuring out a way to rattle that through the block. It was a big game. What started that was Juliann struggling all night, and she came off and made a huge dig at 22-21 to really give us the run.
JUNIOR OUTSIDE HITTER Destinee Hooker On having an outstanding know offensively: Once I start going, I want to keep going. You have your teammates that are picking you up as well.
JUNIOR OUTSIDE HITTER Ashley Engle On Nebraska: They're a great team. I think that they have been in that situation before and I never once thought they were going to give up. Sometimes you want to get up on a team and kind of break them and have them fall apart but they really don't. Maybe they had more hitting errors than usual but that's because they're aggressive and they go for it.
On their game plan tonight: I think it starts with serve and pass. It's all about having a rhythm and if you can start off with a good pass it kind of flows from there. They're obviously a great blocking team so we were trying to cover some balls to get some second opportunities and just trying to stay consistent.
On aiming for the National Championship: That's what our goal is. This is a great team and we played well, but we still have the Big 12 left and I think that is what we focus on first. Hopefully then, when we get to tournament time, we'll get a good seed and start a new postseason.
NEBRASKA QUOTES
HEAD COACH JOHN COOK
Opening statement: I thought we had a chance to win this match tonight in game three, but we hit it away. That gave a lot of momentum, got them back in the match and we just couldn't put the heat on them when we needed to make plays. We had 33 attack errors and you are not going to beat anybody making that many errors.
On what the team did wrong tonight: I thought [Lindsey] Licht was bad tonight. That hurts when we can't attack over there, and then you have Tara [Mueller] and Jordan [Larson] hitting into two big blockers in [Ashley] Engle and [Lauren] Paolini or [Jennifer] Doris all night. That's another reason. It's a combination of that and we also have four players playing down here for the first time. It's a big match and it's their first time in the burner.
On his team's performance: I thought we competed hard the whole night. Our kids played their hearts out. We played a lot better this year than we did down here last year. We graduated four All-Americans and Texas returns four All-Americans. Right now, we're four-to-four in games with them, so I think it's a pretty darn good effort by our team. Again, I think if we make a couple of plays in game three, then it's a whole different match. Our kids competed and fought hard and I thought they did a great job of that.
On what his team did well tonight: I thought we served really well. Texas was not in system. In the first game, [Destinee] Hooker got a lot of sets in the back row because they couldn't set their front row. But I thought we did a great job of serving and we started digging balls. I thought we could've dug a lot more. We dug some shots tonight that gave us chances to score points.
SENIOR OUTSIDE HITTER JORDAN LARSON
On players getting hurt and others stepping up: I think, again, it's been the story of our team. Brooke [Delano] came in last week, replaced Lindsey [Licht] and made things possible. It's how our team has been all season. I think Sydney [Anderson] said after the match that we would die for each other out there, and that is so true. We were giving everything we had. We fought with everything. I think you can compare this to our Colorado match where there was no fighting. But, we found a way to fight tonight.
On what sparked the team to make a come back: It was just taking it one point at a time. We just needed a side out and to just move on. Like Coach Cook said about Destinee [Hooker], we knew they were going to do big things and we knew they were going to hit the ball really hard. But, it was kind of a shake-it-off and move on thing. We can hit the ball hard too and we're going to come right back at you.
SOPHOMORE SETTER SYDNEY ANDERSON
On if she set differently tonight due to the hitting errors: It goes back to how I always set. If my teammates are struggling, I want to get their confidence back up. I'm going to go to them as many times as I need to for them to get a kill. We switched things up and we moved hitters around and then we found open places for them to hit. I just tried to put them in the best situations.
