Post-match Quotes vs. Rutgers
Oct. 30, 2016
UW Field House - Madison, Wis.

Head Coach Kelley Sheffield
Opening statement:
"Congratulations to the old ladies for their milestones, it's good stuff.
 
"I thought we were awfully good defensively today, I thought we defended like crazy and I thought our first contact to serve and pass was really good. I didn't think we were very good in transition and that's why we had a lot of those errors. I think that's a part of the game we struggle with. I loved our intensity with the defense. I'm not sure I liked the execution after we made the big moves and the ball was in the air. We talked about first contact and being feisty in the back row, I thought we did that.
 
"This was a good weekend for us, Friday took quite a bit out of us, yesterday we had an awful lot of responsibilities that day and then getting in here and having a lineup change right before the match. I thought we responded pretty well. I thought some areas we were really, really good at tonight and some others we need to work a little bit harder on."
 
On the impact of Molly Haggerty's absence from the lineup:
"She landed kind of awkwardly during (Friday's) match so her knee is not really cooperating the way that we want it to cooperate right now so instead of pushing it we decided to keep her out and see if that thing can get a little bit better.
 
"That's one of the good things about this team is we're probably me more flexible than people think. We were probably a little bit deeper even though we got quite a few people on the shelf. We've got a lot of confidence in a lot of people. As you could tell tonight, although the hitting percentage won't show it.
 
On Rutgers' lack of attack errors:
"That's a Rutgers team that played awfully clean. They had five percent attack errors and usually a really good night is about 13 or 14 percent, so they were way under half of that. They didn't give us many points on service errors and they played a really, really clean match.
 
"I thought we played really hard but there were quite a few errors in transition. You take those errors in transition out and things look a little different so that's probably why the scores were a little closer."
 
Setter Lauren Carlini:
On if the match met the higher expectations following the Penn State match:
"I think our approach coming into this game was that we had our goals before and we knew what we wanted to do. I don't think we played bad at all, I don't think we played down and they played pretty well I thought. Overall, I think we did pretty well and the scores may not reflect that to some people, but we feel pretty good about that win overall."

On having her 5000th assist:
"It's pretty cool just to be within the top of the assist leaders at Wisconsin. I can't believe I've already gotten here but it's just cool to be in that type of company and I wasn't really excited about it in the moment because it was a close game at that time but now just looking back, that's good company."

Middle Blocker Haleigh Nelson
On the team's balance and depth:
"Our team over the years kind of has been like that. We've been able to have people in double digit kills that are different every night and that's been a strength of this program for awhile. I think this year we have more diversity in a lot of different skills. Like (Kelli) Bates can be a libero one night but she can also be our outside hitter and lead our team in kills, you never really know.
 
"I think what really speaks to those people that get moved around is they have the mentality to go out there and just play the game as opposed to getting overwhelmed by playing a different position. Every night it could be something new. It speaks a lot to them that they can keep their composure and be there for their teammates and not go inside themselves and still play big and strong and just be there for the team. It's really cool to see that, too. It's fun, we all got really excited when Jordan (Robbins) went in and Lauren (Carlini) was on the right side so it's also kind of neat that we can switch things up every once and awhile."
 
On having her 1000th career kill:
"I mean it's pretty cool to be 20 percent of one of the assist leaders assists, so that's probably the coolest part about 1000 kills."

Right Side  Romana Kriskova
On her contributions today:
"It was really fun to play in front of a sold out Field House and it's always fun to play with these girls. We support each other every single day and every single night we play and every single ball so it's always fun to be around them. I feel like most of the sets I was getting were from out of system."