Coach Pete Waite Quotes vs. Michigan
November 11, 2011 | Volleyball
Nov. 11, 2011
Head Coach Pete Waite
vs. No. 24 Michigan
Opening Statement:
"That was a great comeback and a great win for us, being down in the fourth, 20-24. Just showed a lot of grit on our side of the net. I think for much of the match, we just weren't on our game and just weren't clicking. We were sputtering in different ways. The team looked a little flat, and maybe that's a little bit from coming off of Sunday's match. I thought some people really stood out, hitting percentages on both teams were very high. I think the blocks were low until the last part where we got a few blocks in the last set that really made a big difference for us. Good balanced attack and that's what we're always looking for."
On the offense
"Ellen (Chapman) had a phenomenal match, obviously. For a four-set match, 21 kills and two errors, that's great. Dom (Dominique Thompson) came in and really gave us a burst. I didn't really realize it until I saw the stats, six kills, no errors and seven attempts, that's pretty dang good. That's a burst of energy we needed."
On beating two ranked teams in a row:
"I think the team is just becoming tighter as a unit and they are battling. Obviously today they learned they had to battle. Even when their game is off, they have to keep fighting and never give up. They have to come back and get themselves in a groove. This should give them a lot of confidence that, No. 1, that they can come back but No. 2, to fight harder to keep the leads and finish things off sooner. That was a great win tonight, but we know very quickly tomorrow we are back at it with Michigan State, who is a team that beat us last time. We're going to have to play well again."
On serving:
"For the most part, we served pretty well. Four aces is pretty good. I think Nellie (Janelle Gabrielsen) did a good job. We pushed them deep and then we had her go short for a while. I think that got them off their rhythm for a little bit in their offense. So that worked pretty well. Not a great serving night, but a pretty good serving night for us."
On starting Elle Ohlander:
"Elle had started against Penn State and did a great job. She did really well. Even in this match, she wasn't doing anything badly. I told her I think our setters just weren't going to her; they weren't feeding her the ball. Sometimes when you insert a new player, the setters start going to that player, and they started to. Obviously Dom got a lot of good kills there. It was certainly nothing Elle did wrong, we just didn't have any momentum going."
