Colorado State University Athletics
Match Quotes: CSU volleyball vs. Wisconsin
9/6/2014 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
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Head Coach Tom Hilbert
(on the crowd)
"That was fantastic. This kind of atmosphere for college volleyball is awesome. Kelly Sheffield, their coach, is a friend, and he made some very complementary statements about the match environment and what we have going here. It makes me extremely proud to be a coach of this place; we have that kind of turnout, and it genuinely helps us. Both teams walk away from this with some positives."
(on the Rams' sideout game and ability to point score)
"I look at volleyball in two forms: The sideout game and point scoring. Point scoring is the other team's sideout game - so when you're serving. Especially in the third set, we weren't putting any service pressure on them. There will be people who talk about, `We missed too many serves.' We missed seven, which is one more than I think we should miss in a three-set match. We needed to serve tough; we probably should have served tougher than we did. They're (Wisconsin) an outstanding serve-receive team, much better than I expected them to be. Their setter (Lauren Carlini) is really good at playing the game close to the net and keeping the tempo very competitive. We took some risks blocking, and I thought we took good risks blocking. We left their outside hitters alone a couple of times and were able to dig them one on one, but as the match wore on we weren't able to get any more blocks. Three blocks and one service ace . . . we needed a lot more than that to beat this team. I credit them; they're very good. I'll take the offensive and sideout performance that we had against this team any day. If we can stretch sets out that long, now what do we have to do? We have to block some balls, serve some aces and disrupt them more than we did. We didn't do that; they were too good. But we gave ourselves the opportunity to do that. I'm walking away from this thinking we played OK. We're not as good as Wisconsin. What I said to my team at the end of the match was, `Were these sets that we could have won? Certainly one- or two-point swings somewhere could've done it, but it didn't happen. They're too good.' We need to learn from it, and we have to get better."
(on Wisconsin's performance)
"These guys are all as physical as we are. They hit harder and they're all actually very good players. No. 3 (Courtney Thomas) is a heck of a volleyball player. They have a lot of weapons."
(on Wisconsin's outside hitters)
"I was happy with how we managed their outside hitting. (Kelli) Bates hit .233, (Ellen) Chapman hit a .150, and she's an All-America candidate. We were one on one a lot, so I thought we did a good job there. If we're setting ourselves up to stop the kid on the right, we have to do it and we didn't."
(on individual performances)
"Jasmine (Hanna) had a nice game. I think she's growing up as a player, and hitting .200 against Wisconsin is pretty good. Marlee (Reynolds) I thought was good early and late. She's going through these deals in the middle of the matches where she's getting a little tentative; she has to stay aggressive. She thinks a little too much about what is going on. If I could go back and rewind this I would tell Deedra (Foss) to use (Kelsey) Snider more in the middle of the court. She had a good match, and we probably should've gotten more balls to her."
"I'll take that performance of a freshman (Hanna) any year that I've been here."
(on hitting past tough blockers)
"We're getting better, and that team (Wisconsin) puts up some good blocks. There's not a weak blocker on that team, so I think we're getting better."
"We were making hitting assignments, but we weren't getting blocks. It shocks me because we're pretty good at that, but we weren't. They're very fast. It may not seem like it to the layman fan, but they get the ball to the setter very accurately, quickly and she's moving it around really well. If we want to be a great team, that's the one thing I would say we have to get better at against a team like this. Let's block more balls and disrupt a little more on the blocking standpoint, because that will change the way they play. They just had free reign to do whatever they wanted."
Senior Setter Deedra Foss
(on making improvements)
"It shows what we need to work on and what we're good at. Like Tom (Hilbert) said, our offense was pretty good and defense was amazing; Jaime (Colaizzi) did great tonight. Our blocking needs to be better, and that's something we're going to work on. By the end of the season that's something we want to have down and be better at."
(on Wisconsin's performance)
"It's what I expected; I think we prepared well for them."
Freshman Outside Hitter Jasmine Hanna
(on personal performance)
"I was really excited being out there; I've never been out in front of that many people. To me, it was more about keeping calm and putting pressure on them. I obviously want to get kills, and if I see an opportunity then I'm going for the kill. Mostly for me, it was about putting lots of pressure on them. They can't get set up and have a clean play if I'm hitting it deep in the corner and somebody has to run to go get it. That was my mindset through it."
(on what she could have done differently)
"For me, I could've made fewer errors. Again, when I feel like it's out of system just putting pressure balls on. I need to assess quicker when I have an opportunity to get a kill, and when I do, I need to put pressure on them again."
(on Wisconsin's performance)
"I think we scouted for it very well, so I was ready for that. The most surprising thing was how well they serve-received. Everything was on point every time which makes it that much harder to get to a block because you don't know where the ball is going."