The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
UCLA quotes
12.13.2008 | Volleyball
Dec. 12, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes |
TEXAS QUOTES
HEAD COACH Jerritt Elliott
Opening statement: Congratulations to UCLA. They're a very well-coached team that had a tremendous amount of heart in a very tough arena tonight. We have a lot of respect for that coaching staff and [UCLA head coach] Andy [Banachowski] has kind of been one of the pioneers in this sport, and someone that I look up to. He does it the right way. They fought and they didn't give up, and we knew that coming in. There was only one team that had swept them all year and that was Penn State. So we knew that we'd be in for a battle. I think the last game's statistics show that. My hat goes off to our team for competing extremely hard and finding a way to win this match when the game was 19-all in game four. It shows a lot of composure, determination and most importantly a lot of good execution. Sometimes players don't get to play as much as they want, but what Rachael [Adams] did coming in allowed us to get those blocking match-ups that really separated us in the end of the game, making some good quality swings out of transition. But again, a very valid effort from our team that had to work for every single point. I'm very proud of them. It's just another step for us to take. I'm very pleased with them and we'll get them ready for work tomorrow against Iowa State, who we've said all year is the toughest in the conference mentally wise. They compete hard. But again, hats off to my team and UCLA for their tremendous season. And most importantly, I'm so proud to be a Longhorn with those fans out there. That was probably the best environment I've had. We've had sellouts before, but we encourage everyone to come out tomorrow. They were really our big push over the top.
On whether this was the most mentally draining match of the season: I don't know if it was the most mentally draining. It was pretty electric I felt, and I was more of a cheerleader than I normally am, trying to get the crowd behind us. The draining part about the NCAA is the wait time up until that match. It felt like it was four months since last weekend. You try to do everything to prepare, don't sleep at night, turn the videos back on, but try not to over-analyze it, and try to dumb it down for your team so they're not over-thinking. It was exciting and exhilarating. It was a match that could have gone either way. As a coach, you try to get them in these situations and try to really let them enjoy these runs. This is a huge stage in their lives and this is going to be something that they remember forever. There's nothing more that I want as a coach than for this group to experience what it's like to go to the next level. We've been here three years in a row and this is not where we want to end up. We're going to have our work cut out for us.
On being on the brink of a Final Four: For me it's exciting because it's an opportunity for us to learn from the former year. I know that this team is not looking past Iowa State. I know that their heart, determination and what they've been focusing on has been one opponent at a time. I didn't even know some of the match-ups this weekend, and I know some of the players didn't as well. It just shows me that they're focused, they're on a mission to get there, but I'm sure Iowa State is as well. That's going to be proven tomorrow night at 5:30. Again, we need everybody in Austin to show up and support this team.
On the keys to winning the fourth and final set: I think the difference in the match was blocking. UCLA is just so tenacious. They've got such a special leader in Nellie Spicer and Ali Daley. I've only been able to watch Nellie Spicer from afar and she's been one of my favorite setters to watch. She rubs off on her team, she's the right kind of leader, someone you can have your players look up to. But I think the difference was blocking. You look at the block numbers, we had 19.5 blocks and a lot of those came at the end. They did a really good job of touching us, in terms of touching blocks. We weren't getting our feet, going over them and creating the angles that we wanted. Therefore, we started making some errors in game two. In game four, I think the difference was Lauren's block, then we got a good touch block on a slide, and then I think it was [Katie] Camp who tried to do too much on her set and it went a little bit wide, then the block at the end on Dicey [McGraw]. Blocking, getting touches and transitions [were important]. If we can get transitions, obviously we have a little more of a physical advantage than UCLA.
On facing Iowa State for a third time this season: Facing a team for a third time and beating them a third time is a very tough task. I think our girls know that, they're going to be focused. This is the biggest game, the biggest opportunity presented for them. [Iowa State] got beat pretty bad by Oregon, and I said the worst thing Oregon could do is come out flat because this team is not going to lay down, they're going to come back and win game three, I was pretty confident on that. And then they just kind of took the energy, kept battling. When you've got that kind of energy defensively, it's a battle. They do a great job of teaching how to tool the block. We have a lot more tape, that's the advantage. We have a lot of tape on them, a lot of breakdowns, a lot of statistical data, as they do on us. We're going to have to go back and watch a lot of tapes, and find out where we've been successful in the games, and where we haven't, and try to maximize that. But at this level, it's serve-and-pass. If you can be good at that, it's tough to not be successful.
On Michelle Kocher's big game: I'm proud of her. We set up the matches early on with Stanford and USC to try to get her some experience, because she had some hitters. There were a lot of jitters early on. She's been a fun story, because she said this was her dream, to play at a school like this on this kind of team. She felt like she was at Disney Land. I probably had meetings with her every day for the first three weeks, I couldn't get her to have fun because there was so much pressure on herself. We finally got to the point in the season where she had a great match. Afterward I sent her a text saying I was proud of her, and she replied that tonight was the first time she had fun. It's a valuable experience playing in a conference like this and to be able to get through these kinds of matches. She did one heck of a job and made some good adjustments. We started setting the ball a little bit high, and then a little bit flat, and she just stuck through it. She's Steady Eddie for us.
JUNIOR OH Ashley Engle
On the team playing more defensive tonight: We knew coming into this match that they were an amazing defensive team. It's just one of those things where, as a hitter, you have to really stay patient. I think that they caught us a little off guard sometimes, so maybe we had a few more errors than we normally do. But I think we kind of had to match them - get more touches on the block, get more touches on our defense, and in our hitting, we just needed to stay patient. We did a pretty good job of that.
On Iowa State: I think they're a very dangerous team. We've played them in conference and it's always been a battle. I think that in the postseason, it's a whole new season. Whatever your record was or however you're perceived during conference play, it doesn't really matter. I think that they're playing excellent volleyball and I think we are too, so it's a team that we're going to have to play really well against.
JUNIOR OH Destinee Hooker
On feeding off the crowd's intensity and vice versa: I try to match the energy. I just feed off of it. It's a great thing to have, the crowd and all the support. Whatever works.
SENIOR MB Lauren Paolini
On her offensive success tonight: I think at first, they were sending two players out to the hut, so I only had one blocker. That just made it really nice to work against. But I think [Michelle] Kocher and I just found a really good rhythm right off the bat, and that really helped our offensive flow get going.
UCLA QUOTES
HEAD COACH
ANDY BANACHOWSKI
Opening statement: I'm certainly very proud of our team and the way we played tonight. Give a tremendous amount of credit to Texas. Their offensive firepower finally wore us down. They did a great job tonight with their game plan and execution. I wish them well as they go on to the tournament here.
On UCLA's execution: Well I did think that we were able to play some good defense, but I never felt like we were able to get into the transitional flow that we normally do. The fact that Nellie was hurdling around on one leg, I don't think I've seen her bump set that many balls in a match. I think that took us a little bit out of rhythm and slowed us down some.
On Texas as a team: Texas is very strong no question about it. I think they were in the top five in the country offensively all year long. I think that if they can continue to generate offense like that, they'll be able to do very well. I'm pretty pleased with the fact that we were able to cut their offensive numbers in half. I thought we were able to play pretty good defense, but we weren't able to match their offensive output.
On the remaining tournament field: I think Penn State is better than anybody else just from their ball control, their offense and defense. They haven't lost a set all year, they're undefeated and defending National Champions. Everybody is shooting for them. I don't think that throughout the year anybody has shown themselves, I don't believe to, be better than Penn State.
FRESHMAN MB AMANDA GIL
On the crowd: The atmosphere was very different than what we're used to. The court was down, we felt like they were on top of us and they're really good fans. Just being able to play in that type of atmosphere was a great experience for us to get used to.
