Sheffield addresses the media
September 02, 2013 | Volleyball
Sept. 2, 2013
MADISON, Wis. – When head volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield talked to the media Monday at UW’s weekly news conference, he was proud of his team for opening the season with a tournament title at the Pepperdine Classic. But he is already looking ahead to the North Dakota State Classic this weekend in Fargo, N.D.
The Badgers opened the season 3-0 by winning the Pepperdine Classic, including a 3-1 win over the host Waves, last weekend.
Wisconsin travels to NDSU on Friday-Saturday where it will face Northern Iowa, North Dakota State and No. 17 Louisville in the round-robin tournament.
A complete transcription of Sheffield’s comments is below.
Opening Statement: I thought we were tough this weekend. I thought our ball control was, for the most part, exceptional. I thought Taylor Morey and Annemarie Hickey, I thought both of them really controlled the ball really well - allowed us to be in system a lot.
Courtney Thomas did a really good job of dishing and getting the ball to the hot hitters at the right time. Ellen Chapman was really physical and playing with a lot of energy and a lot of emotion for the entire tournament. We leaned on her an awful lot. And Dominique Thompson, it was great to see her back. She's been out of action for a year so I'm sure that first tournament was fantastic for her.
I thought we beat a really good team at their place in Pepperdine. It's a team that will end up in the top 20-25 before the seasons over. To win at their place, as banged up as we are, was a good sign.
We're just breaking down film right now, trying to get ready for Northern Iowa and North Dakota State and Louisville.
What's enlightened you? What sense of enlightenment did you get about your team, first opportunity to see them in competition, short-handed, on the road, a lot of things that could come out of that. What stood out to you?
Our toughness. (I am) really proud of this group. That was one of the things that we talked about going into that Pepperdine match is that we heard quite a few times from some of the older players they just don't feel like they've been respected as a team recently.
I said, ‘You go out and win a match like this against a team like this on the road with as banged up as we what are, you're going to get a lot of respect for being able to do that.’
Not only that, we were going head to head with them the first couple of games. I mean, it was back and forth – some really, really high level stuff going on there for a while. Then we lose game three and (I was) really interested to see how we're going to come out in game four. We weren't bothered one bit by losing that last game (and) really put it to them.
I thought we were tough. I thought we were resilient. I thought we played together with a lot of energy and passion. I would say that those were all really good signs and things that I would … I don't know if I was surprised with, but it was what you would hope to see as a coach.
Kelly, you weren't sure last week how many healthy bodies you'd have out there. How many did you have? Does that status change for this weekend?
We were fortunate enough to get Tori Blake, one of our freshmen middles, back for the weekend. She hadn't practiced in a week, week and a half. She came back from a concussion the day before the tournament. It was the first time she was kind of clear in the head.
She was able to go a little bit, obviously without training or anything. We were a little hesitant with how much we were going to put her out there. She should be full go with a full week of practice this week.
Everybody else is day to day, week to week. I'm not sure if we're going to get anybody else back for this week. But it's kind of out of my hands. We're not going to do anything that's isn’t going to be long term. We're going to think long term with all these guys. So it's day to day right now.
Coach, with all the injuries, how proud are you of the girls who have stepped up and filled that position and played? How did the players that were injured, how did they help the rest of the team fill those roles?
I'm incredibly proud. Not just like coming out 3-0, it goes beyond that. It's just how you are playing. We threw out three lineups in three games that we haven't practiced at all. We've got 5-6 Taylor Morey hitting on the outside against Delaware because Annemarie Hickey's knees were kind of bothering her.
I called her in that morning. She hadn't practiced hitting the entire preseason and I said, ‘Hey, what do you think about hitting today?’ She's like, ‘Let's f… ing do it.’ I looked at her, and I said, ‘Are you sure? Anything you want to talk about?’ She goes, ‘No, we done?’ I said, ‘We're done,’ and she turned around and walked out.
It's just that little bit of swagger. It was kind of that swagger a little bit, I guess, that some of these guys had that I liked. What else are you going to do? You're down with so many bodies, and it's just like, all right, what else are you going to do?
The kids that were out, they're finding energy. They're going crazy. They're excited for each other, and that certainly makes it more fun to coach.
Independent of winning out there, it looked from the photos that were posted that you were having a good time too and maybe got to know each other. How valuable was that time, and did you learn a little bit more about your team maybe more off the court?
When it's time to go, we want to be a team that's ready to go, and we're going to try to bring it. It doesn't matter who we're playing, we're going to try to bring it.
When it's not time to go, let's enjoy each other's company and we ate at some good places out there. There's some fantastic seafood out there and we made sure that we hit a place or two there.
But it was about business there. You've got to see some amazing scenes out there with the water and the mountains and things, but it was about business.
Yeah, I learned quite a bit about our guys. They're a fun group to be around.
Kelly, the play of Ellen Chapman, I think she moved from one side to the other as far as an outside hitter. Maybe that was a necessity, I don't know. Is this something you're expecting from her each and every weekend the way she played? Not only hitting the ball, but she seemed to be doing everything.
I don't know. It's almost like I'm winging it right now. She started preseason on the left for a few days then we moved her to the middle for a few days. Now we've got her on the right.
Players are dropping like flies, and we're just kind of piecemealing things. Kind of like, ‘Hey, let's go out and see what we can do.’
She's one of those rare talents. We've got two kids that are just absolute rare talents. Ellen Chapman, who I feel I can put her anywhere along the net, and Courtney Thomas. She should be our L1 for most of the year, but she was setting this past week and I don't know another player in the country at any top-level school that's able to be your No. 1 offensive option and your setter. It's ridiculous.
(For Ellen’s) first time playing right, I thought she did a pretty good job. Ball control was good enough where we could get her the ball a lot. But I think it's going to be a work in progress for the coaching staff to try to figure out exactly how all the different ways …
Lauren Carlini is sitting over there on the sideline and telling me, ‘I'm going to have so much fun setting her because there's so much that she can do.’
We're just going to have to figure it out as a coaching staff.
You missed quite a few serves over the weekend. Can you talk about your strategy with the aggressive serving?
Yeah, we did miss a lot. I got quite a few e-mails and text messages from people pointing that out.
When you're putting a game plan together, this is what I know. We're not a very good blocking team right now and if teams are a system - Pepperdine is loaded with offensive talent – and if they're in system, they're probably going to destroy us at the net.
So our philosophy going in was we had to serve really, really challenging to keep them from being in system, to release some of the pressure of our block.
When we're as small as what we are on the outside and we've got one of our middles that's barely 6 foot, that's kind of tough.
We passed a 2.55. They passed a 1.91. You’re holding somebody under a 2.00 and you're doing pretty well. They were not in system a whole lot.
And the other thing is we just kept telling them after game one - we missed five or six serves after game one. I didn't want them to ease back, just keep being aggressive. Some of these serves were just missing we're going to find that path where it’s staying in a little bit.
When you're siding out at 73 percent, that's a monster number. That allows you to be more aggressive serving. So in the meantime, while we're small, we're going to have to be that. We're going to have to be a team that's really aggressive.
Do I want to miss 20 serves? No way. Hopefully, we can bring that number down a little bit with some technical changes but you can't have it both ways. You can't tell your players to serve really aggressive and get them out of system but then don't miss-serve either.
But I'll tell you what, if we had eased back on our serving, we wouldn't have won that match. You could see, as the match went on, our serving broke them down. We sided out at 100 percent in game four, which is a really ridiculous number. We were serving them off the court in game four.
Fans hate service errors because they look at it kind of like a free throw. It's not a free throw. Your job isn't to put the serve in. Your job is to get them out of system, and that requires a really tough serve.
