Recap |  Box Score

Sept. 12, 2014

Head Coach Kelly Sheffield

On his response to the challenging match he expected:
"I thought we handled the pregame stuff well, starting about 40 minutes late and the banner stuff. Sometimes the match actually has to take precedence and I thought it did with us. I thought when it was time for the first serve that we were ready to go, and that's great that you have a team that's able to get locked in when they need to get locked in. You know, we did a lot of positives tonight, I thought we were pretty good on the serve and pass game, I thought they got a lot tougher with their serve in game three and we tried to lock down ourselves. We made some mental errors there in game three, but I thought overall it was a good team effort."

On Kelli's performance:
"Yeah, she makes some errors that you get frustrated with but she's learning and she's getting better. She's playing with more confidence and had a really nice night tonight."

On Lauren's options and ability to get points:
"She likes to balance things out, you know, she likes to get everybody involved. When your ball control is good then you're able to do that. If the center is running all over the place and not able to be in the system, then it doesn't look very balanced. Usually in balance attack, it means there's pretty solid passing, and tonight there was."

On what the one thing is that needs work from tonight's game:
"We have to continue to work on our blocking. I thought for the first two games it was pretty okay. I thought it was an area that we were okay, I thought we served the ball really well but that was probably the biggest glaring part tonight that we just have to continue to be a better blocking team. We were getting really good touches and sometimes the quality of your blocking doesn't show up in stats. We're a team that gets a lot of touches, but I thought there were still quite a few errors in that part of the game. We have to continue to get better. We're spending a lot of time in practice, but we still have a ways to go in that area."

Freshman outside hitter Kelli Bates

On what numbers from the stats of tonight's game jump out to her:
"I think Lauren (Carlini) did a really great job at distributing the offense. I think she made Miami commit to each one of their hitters, so that opened up for another one of our hitters, which made the offense really easy to run. Also, she was a real threat with the kills she had. I think that took Miami out of their game plan and that also opened up for the middle hitters and the outsides too."
 
On the reality of competing in the UW Fieldhouse as a freshman:
"Well the suspense was driving me crazy because the set before us went five, but we expected a lot of people to come out here just because of the success that the team had last year. We knew that there were going to be more fans, so I think that I was really excited to be a part of it now. The student section and all the other fans are so reliable and I think that's what makes this place so great."

Sophomore middle blocker Haleigh Nelson

On what numbers from the stats of tonight's game jump out to her:
"Probably one of the first numbers that jumped out at me was Lauren's attack percentage. She did a really great job of keeping the diggers on their toes. She opened up for a lot of other people, so that gave her the alley way to make some good dumps. Also, I think we served really well as a team, only three team errors in the whole match and four aces, so that's pretty good."

On Kelli's impact:
"Bates has had a huge impact on our team. She brings a type of fire that you don't always find in a freshman right away. I think her big swings and her big personality really help drive us as a group and keep the energy up. I don't know what we'd be without her because she just brings a lot."

On the defensive emphasis of the team:
"We really locked in on number 21 and number 16, their middle. We had some scheming going on, we kept to our basic system, but we just made a few adjustments here and there. We knew what their favorite shots were and stuff from the film that we studied before. We just kind of schemed a little and were aware of what they liked to hit and what they didn't like to hit. Everyone was on their game and most people stuck to the game plan and it worked out."