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Wisconsin Postgame Quotes
Wisconsin vs. Ohio State
Sept. 28, 2014
UW Fieldhouse - Madison, Wis.
Head Coach Kelly Sheffield
On his opening statement:
"It's a really hard team to play well against. They have so many different lineups with 5-1 and a 6-2 offense and people playing a lot of different positions, a lot of subbing that goes on. It's a really tough team to get in a rhythm. A big part of their game is to keep the other team off balance. I thought we did a really good job today. I thought we did a good job of not letting them get runs, a good job of communicating and we did a really good job of helping each other out when a lot of the subbing was going on. It was a good team win for us."
On coming back from previous losses:
"I think we've got players that take pride in coming back. I think we've got players that take pride in, individually if they have a tough match, that doesn't stretch on to two or three matches. I think we've got players that take pride in if things don't go the way we want to, that they come back with strength. That's something we talk about. When you have players and a team that has pride, then it doesn't matter who you're playing against. Strong teams say 'I'm going to come back; we are going to come back.' We got a lot of players that feel that way and so it wouldn't have mattered who was on the other side of the net. You totally expect these players and this team to come out and make a statement and I thought we did that today."
On preparing the team for Ohio State:
"Without getting into too many specifics, it's a little bit different going against this team. You can either load your team and give them a lot of information that they can try to regurgitate or you can simplify things as much as possible and help them throughout the match and that was the approach we decided to do. Gary (White) I thought did a great job of having plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D and plan E because all of those things were needed and then helping these players throughout the match."
On how they prevented Ohio State from getting any runs:
"Through ball control and decision-making. You're able to stop runs when you have ball control and you're making good decisions, especially in the setter position and attackers. Those two things go hand-in-hand."
On Dom Thompson's impact early and Courtney Thomas' kills:
"Both of those are surprising, isn't it? You don't ever expect us to go to Dom early; you don't ever expect Courtney Thomas to be a closer. It's who we are. It's what we do. Lauren [Carlini] was trying to get the ball to Dom a lot early. We thought we could be successful early (with) that the middle set to Court on some second-temple balls in the middle. She got hot there at the end with the sets behind (the setter). Those two were great. Lauren did a great job of executing the game plan."
On their struggling defense against Penn State:
"We made a few adjustments. Caroline [Workman] got some playing time. I thought we got a lot of points off of her serves. That was great. Taylor Morey is moving around in different defensive positions out there. She got 22 digs. That's sniffing out a lot of balls. We had the right people in the right places."
Wisconsin Players
On how it feels to get the first Big Ten win of the season (Lauren Carlini):
"It feels good, kind of like Kelly said, it's hard to play good against this team, they have a lot of different things going on the other side of the net, and a lot of little details that you have to pay attention to. I think we did a great job of communicating between ourselves, and between the coaches and players, so we executed the game plan well, came out with a sweep for our first Big Ten win and we're excited about it."
On how important it was to come back and reassert themselves (Dominique Thompson):
"I think it was extremely important. I think we all were very focused and wanted to get out of this losing streak that we were in, so we wanted to come out strong today and show everybody what we could actually do, and get stronger from the games that we have lost."
On Lauren's use of the middles and if it was spontaneous or planned (Lauren Carlini):
"Yeah, I mean, that was definitely part of our game plan, was to attack the middle part of the court, our middles did a really good job today of transitioning hard and getting up and being available, so that's super important to me as a setter... and then not even just the middles but Courtney (Thomas) coming into the middle part of the court, she did really good on the five balls, so I think overall our hitters had a great day."
On what enabled them to break Ohio State's game and maintain control in the third set (Courtney Thomas):
"I think we just have a lot of fighting spirit right now and we're up 2-0, and we get into the third game, and were not allowing a team to come back. It's on our home court and we're going come out and beat them in three."
On how it feels to win their first Big Ten match at home (Lauren Carlini):
"I think it's better than winning on the road... yeah it feels good to win on the road, but at the same time, our fans know what we went through in our last game against Penn State, and could tell how much of a struggle it was after that game. We were all mad about it, we were upset about it, but we came back fiery and we wanted to win this game for our fans and for our team, so we did."
On the effect on her confidence after having only one kill against Penn State and 11 today (Courtney Thomas):
"I didn't lose much confidence after Penn State, I knew, they set up a good block against me, I'm not always going to have a great game, if they set up a good block on me, so what... the next game gives me the opportunity to bounce back, so I wouldn't say I really lost confidence, but I knew this match I was going to have a good game."
