Postmatch Quotes: Wisconsin vs. Michigan State
November 19, 2016 | Volleyball
Quotes from Sheffield, Bates and Nelson
UW head coach Kelly Sheffield
"We talked about going into the match just trying to be resilient. This is a team that puts a lot of pressure on you from the service line and offensively, they bring a lot of heat at you. I thought we did a really good job of being resilient. Those guys have some servers that were pacing some bombs over there. I thought we battled and fought to try to get the ball up in the air."
"To hold that team to hitting .103 was another really good defensive night for us. That's starting to turn into a big time strength for our players. To come in here 2-0 for these two teams that will probably be seeded going into the NCAA tournament, I'd say this was probably a pretty good weekend for us."
"I thought defensively we were really good this weekend. That's something these guys have put in a lot of work in the practice gym defensively. We've dug a lot of balls, we've worked a lot on blocking. I thought one of the things they did a really good job of tonight was making the adjustments during the match between sets. We executed really well out of the timeouts. They're putting the work in and it's paying off."
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Junior Kelli Bates
"We knew coming in that they were the toughest team in the Big Ten, if not the country, and our passers have been working really hard on being able to bounce back from mistakes and just focusing on the small fundamental things. We watched film on their servers, their tendencies and what they like to do, things like that to help us going into the match."
"We talked about this is like a team we're going to see going into the final four and so that's how we had to prepare. Michigan State is a squad right now where they're going to come at you with balls blazing. We knew that from the service line, we knew that from an offensive standpoint that they have so many weapons. You can tell at the net, they're all huge, they're all about 6-2 including their setter. From the service line we had to do our job to get them out of system so they couldn't use those weapons."
"We knew they could bounce back, that they had that ability. So it was our job to finish them off in three."
"I would say we felt it building from a passing standpoint because we're the ones handling the serve. We know how the momentum is shifting. We knew they were finding momentum because we knew they rely on Brooke Kranda for lots of aces and at least getting teams out of system. So we could feel that pressure but we practice that every day and that isn't anything new to us."
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Senior Haleigh Nelson
"I know that if I serve more then I get to dig more balls. We knew that we had to serve tough because when they're in system they're an amazing offensive team. Their first tempo ball is really high quality so going in we all knew we had to step up our serving game or else it would be a lot tougher to defend. I knew that if I went to the service line and put up cupcakes then it was going to be a lot more difficult for everybody else to defend. It's kind of our job behind the service line to make everybody else's job easier."
"It feels pretty good because what we talked about all week is that this is like a weekend we'll see in the NCAA tournament. To come out and play clean two matches in a row is something we haven't really done lately. So keeping that play level really high was important to us. I'm really proud of how we responded even when things started to go the other team's way. We stuck together and looked in each other's eyes and knew we were going to pull it out."
"We talked about going into the match just trying to be resilient. This is a team that puts a lot of pressure on you from the service line and offensively, they bring a lot of heat at you. I thought we did a really good job of being resilient. Those guys have some servers that were pacing some bombs over there. I thought we battled and fought to try to get the ball up in the air."
"To hold that team to hitting .103 was another really good defensive night for us. That's starting to turn into a big time strength for our players. To come in here 2-0 for these two teams that will probably be seeded going into the NCAA tournament, I'd say this was probably a pretty good weekend for us."
"I thought defensively we were really good this weekend. That's something these guys have put in a lot of work in the practice gym defensively. We've dug a lot of balls, we've worked a lot on blocking. I thought one of the things they did a really good job of tonight was making the adjustments during the match between sets. We executed really well out of the timeouts. They're putting the work in and it's paying off."
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Junior Kelli Bates
"We knew coming in that they were the toughest team in the Big Ten, if not the country, and our passers have been working really hard on being able to bounce back from mistakes and just focusing on the small fundamental things. We watched film on their servers, their tendencies and what they like to do, things like that to help us going into the match."
"We talked about this is like a team we're going to see going into the final four and so that's how we had to prepare. Michigan State is a squad right now where they're going to come at you with balls blazing. We knew that from the service line, we knew that from an offensive standpoint that they have so many weapons. You can tell at the net, they're all huge, they're all about 6-2 including their setter. From the service line we had to do our job to get them out of system so they couldn't use those weapons."
"We knew they could bounce back, that they had that ability. So it was our job to finish them off in three."
"I would say we felt it building from a passing standpoint because we're the ones handling the serve. We know how the momentum is shifting. We knew they were finding momentum because we knew they rely on Brooke Kranda for lots of aces and at least getting teams out of system. So we could feel that pressure but we practice that every day and that isn't anything new to us."
Â
Senior Haleigh Nelson
"I know that if I serve more then I get to dig more balls. We knew that we had to serve tough because when they're in system they're an amazing offensive team. Their first tempo ball is really high quality so going in we all knew we had to step up our serving game or else it would be a lot tougher to defend. I knew that if I went to the service line and put up cupcakes then it was going to be a lot more difficult for everybody else to defend. It's kind of our job behind the service line to make everybody else's job easier."
"It feels pretty good because what we talked about all week is that this is like a weekend we'll see in the NCAA tournament. To come out and play clean two matches in a row is something we haven't really done lately. So keeping that play level really high was important to us. I'm really proud of how we responded even when things started to go the other team's way. We stuck together and looked in each other's eyes and knew we were going to pull it out."
Players Mentioned
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