The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Kansas State
No. 5 Volleyball preview: No. 22 Kansas State [Nov. 7, 2014]
11.06.2014 | Volleyball
No. 5 Texas Volleyball welcomes No. 22 Kansas State to Gregory Gym on Friday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m.
No. 22 Kansas State at No. 5 Texas
Gregory Gym (4,000) – Austin, Texas
Friday, Nov. 7 – 7 p.m. CT
Match 19: Kansas State
When: Friday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m.
Where: Austin, Texas (Gregory Gym)
Television: Longhorn Network
Live Stats: CLICK HERE
Live Audio: CLICK HERE
All-time Series: Texas leads, 23-7
• Texas is coming off two road wins, most recently a 3-0 victory at Texas Tech on Wednesday night. Senior Haley Eckerman led the Longhorns in kills with 10 for her fifth-straight match with double-digit kills. Freshman Cat McCoy had 16 digs, junior Amy Neal added 11 and juniors Paulina Prieto Cerame and Molly McCage had five blocks each.
• Texas has won 25 of its last 26 Big 12 Conference matches. At home, the Longhorns are 158-24 vs. Big 12 opponents. Head Coach Jerritt Elliott has a 123-14 record in the Big 12 (90 percent).
• Kansas State will be the fifth ranked opponent Texas has seen this season. The Longhorns have a 79-37 record against ranked opponents over the last 11 seasons (2004-14) and a 4-0 mark against them in 2014 (No. 11 Florida, No. 21 Arizona, No. 9 Nebraska, No. 25 Kansas State – Florida, Nebraska and Kansas State were road matches).
• Texas ranks seventh in the NCAA in hitting percentage at .287 and first in the NCAA in opponent hitting percentage at .128. That's a difference of .159, so the Longhorns are hitting more than twice the percentage of their opponents.
LAST MEETING
-On Oct. 18 in Manhattan, Kan., Texas defeated the Wildcats, 3-0 (25-19, 25-22, 25-12).
-Seniors Khat Bell and Haley Eckerman posted 12 and 11 kills, while junior Amy Neal added 10.
-The Longhorns hit .406 to KSU's .108.
MEDIA AVAILABILITY QUOTES
Head Coach Jerritt Elliott
On moving on from the Oklahoma loss: We didn't play well. I think the girls were very upset about it. Obviously, the coaches thought a lot about it and went over a lot of film and evaluated everything. At the end of the day, you have to get back and understand that a loss is a part of college athletics. The biggest thing is that they took accountability for it and wanted to make some improvements. If we keep winning, it could be a positive for us come NCAA, so we don't go in with all the pressure. Sometimes that can be a benefit for us. Our goal has always been to win the Big 12 Conference. With one loss or two losses, or however many we get, getting the conference championship is key. And then we will get ready for the tournament and see how many good games we can put together.
On last night's match preparing them: So much about it is what happens on our side of the net and that's the way it is with any team. It's the preparation, how they come out, how long they can sustain the focus and play at the level that you can. If we do that, then we have so many weapons, we can play so many different ways and we can hurt you in so many different ways. We did a good job of setting our offense last night and getting them off balance. We will have to do the same thing with a different scheme tomorrow night.
On the final weeks of the season: Right now, we are just trying to get through this week. This has been a long week, a lot of travel and a lot of games in a short period of time, so our focus today is just getting fresh, getting to the place where we can play at a high level tomorrow night and then we will get rest. We will get two days off and then start focusing and getting in rhythm. There aren't a whole lot of things that we need to fix or change. It's more about just playing more consistently. We put a game up at .400 or .500 and the next game will be .200. We just have to come out and manage our game. When we are low in errors and playing consistently, we are a very good team. We have to learn our personalities—I think that's the biggest thing that we are focusing on right now. We have to be consistent with who we are.
Freshman Cat McCoy
On how she is feeling: I always heard conference play can be tiring and repetitive, but it really hasn't been. It has been great, just coming into practice—my teammates are really great about making every practice a fun environment and not boring.
On last night's match helping in their preparation: It just shows that we are doing the simple things right—we are executing at a high level right now, which is good. We have a couple more big games ahead, so we will see how we do with that.
On the team's mentality after the loss: We are just going to go after it and play Texas volleyball. In the game against Oklahoma, we did not play our game at all. We played intimidated and shaky. We are just going to come out and play how we normally play.
