Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Post-match Quotes
No. 5 Wisconsin vs. Iowa
Oct. 22, 2014
Field House - Madison, Wis.
UW Head Coach Kelly Sheffield
On if you saw more good than bad tonight:
"I like what I saw from my team tonight. You know we had a few more attack errors than what we normally have, but I thought for the most part those were shots that were the right shots they just weren't going in. I thought for the most part we played a pretty smart game and you know at the end of the day that's what you're wanting. Other than the blocking, it wasn't a match statistically full of beauty. I thought we played pretty smart, but there's good misses and there's bad misses. Sometimes you try to go for the right shot and it just misses, and we're not going to get upset about that. All of a sudden we become the best blocking team in the entire universe. You can't figure those things out, but I liked the mindset that my team showed up with tonight. I'm proud of them."
On service runs:
“Yeah I mean, you're surprised as well. Nelly (Haleigh Nelson) is great in practice and then sometimes she comes out here and is fluff sometimes when she is serving in matches. I know the entire crowd was very appreciative of the fact that she was serving with some aggression and some confidence. We see that every day in practice and it's good to see that the people that are paying money were able to see that from her tonight. That'd be a great question to ask her when she comes up here is about her serving.”
On Iowa having five more digs:
“We had ten more blocks than them so I'd say that probably had something to do with it. YOu know we are a low hitting error team, you know we are not a team that hits a lot of balls out of bounds. We don't get blocked a ton. I'd say in the past, Courtney and earlier this year, Kelli, people that would get blocked a little bit more but their games have expanded a lot. Their shot repertoire has expanded a lot. They don't go onto those getting housed as much as they have done in the past. First of all, we are a low hitting error team and then second of all, our blocks are improving a lot. We're typically under, by quite a bit, what our opponents usually are.”
On if Haleigh playing the back line was a one time thing:
“Oh no, she's been back there when she serves, but the fact is she doesn't make many digs so you don't notice her. She's been coming to us quite a bit, and I know you guys have been writing about Taylor Morey, but one of the things about Haleigh Nelson, her dream is to be the libero. I don't know how many digs she had tonight. Five? It felt like 25 at times. And she's coming around, she's working really hard, but early on she tried to make some digs and you worried for her health and her teammates help because she would just be flopping around like a whale out of water. She's getting some control right now and making some really good reads and good plays. Yeah tonight, it was fun. The whole team has fun when she digs. It's a party on the sideline when she's digging like she was tonight.”
On Ellen Chapman having a down game statistically:
”You know, she was hitting the right shots, they made some really good plays on Chap tonight. There's times that she has a lot higher hitting percentage that I sit there and say "what in the world were you thinking out there?" Tonight wasn't one of those. The defense they were throwing at her, she was hitting the right shots, she was playing smart. They made some great plays and you know it's funny when those things happen. Low kills for her, low hitting percentage for her, but I thought she was under control and I thought she played okay tonight.”
Senior Outside Hitter Courtney Thomas
On efficiency in attacking tonight:
“I would say our scouting report says a lot about what shots we are going to have open. Different things that are going to happen like that that we can see on the other side of the net. It is also just having an IQ of the game and being able to see what is happening on the other side of the net after each play, seeing where the defense is and hitting where they ate not.”
On having multiple attack errors close together:
“I’m not purposely hitting the ball out of bounds or in the block on purpose. Definitely when I make two hitting errors, I’m telling Lauren to set me the next ball; especially if it is in a rally and I don’t score or if I get blocked. We have good communication with each other so she knows that I’m not going to allow someone to dig me or block me. My temperature does rise and that allows me to be more aggressive and my personality comes out that allows me to get a kill.”
On handling pressure situations:
“If I could be set every ball, that’s how it would be but that is not how the game works. Definitely in situations like that I love getting the ball in pressure situations. I absolutely love it.”
Sophomore Middle Blocker Haleigh Nelson On her serve: “It’s really fun. Tonight I just tried to go in with a different mindset. Like Coach Sheffield said, sometimes I can be a little fluffy back there behind the service line. Tonight I just cleared my mind a little more and just decided to go for it and see if I could yo-yo the back row for a little bit. As I started to get on my first run, I started to think about Dominique because she always tells me that she wants to stay up there in the front row as long as possible. So if I keep them off balance, I can keep her in the front row. If she is happy, then I am happy.”
On getting digs in the back row:
“Digs are awesome. I love playing back row. Kelly almost has it right, my dream is not to be a libero but it is to be a six-rotation middle. He almost has it right but I love playing the back row and my teammates are so supportive about me when I get digs. They know I hit the ground pretty hard so when I get a dig, they are pretty happy that I haven’t broken any bones.”
On blocking with Dominique:
“Kind of like what Kelly said, there is no magic answer to why we are all of sudden doing so well. We haven’t changed our strategies at all; we are still working on the same things we were working on at the beginning of the season. Things are just starting to come together. We are working better together as a front row and putting up a solid block that is closed. So when our pin blockers are working with our middles, it becomes a lot easier to defend the other team and help out our back row by getting some blocks at the net.”
On handling pressure situations:
“It makes the game more fun to know that when the game is on the line, you can go up and give your team what they need to keep going. When one of us is in trouble, it is nice to know that anyone on our team can go up and be reliable at any point in the match. I trust everyone on this team to be ready in those moments. So we are ready for them and it makes the game a lot more fun.”
On the team as a whole:
“We have been doing really well. We have improved every match but we still have a long way to go. We believe that our team chemistry can be even better than it is now. The sky is the limit for us even though right now we have been on a really good run, we are not even close to being done yet. We have to make sure that we are still improving and expanding our game even more so that by the end of the season e are the best team that we can possible be.”
