Opening Statement: Mick Haley (Head Coach) -
“Hard to have to many words when you lose one like that, I really like my team. I think Stanford is a pretty great team, I think we did about everything that you can do to them to try to win this match. We even guessed right a couple of times. They have a lot of weapons, they are very athletic. Yet, we get 13, 16, 14 kills and we stay in the game with a team that is getting 20 kills, that is not supposed to happen. If you can get 20 points just attacking, that gets you closer to winning. I think we were pretty stingy on getting them points. That’s a pretty disciplined group and a pretty great effort. Our libero had seven digs a game, that’s a pretty great effort for her. When you play a team for the third time it is very difficult for either team to play well, because you know each others weaknesses. In basketball you see this all the time, it’s the toughest matchup the third time. Yet I thought both teams got into a pretty good rhythm and they battled and battled. If you didn’t appreciate that, you missed a whole lot. We’re sorry we lost, but we wish Stanford the best of luck. We battled as hard as we could, we just came up short”
Mick Haley – Concerning Akinradewo starting in the front row in game five.
“They started her in the front row in game one and we took them apart so bad because we had the matchups we wanted. But they rotated to one in games two and three, just simply because our matchups were too good. We fumbled around for a while and got things right in game four. In game five we figured they would go back to three because they wanted Foluke in the front row and we wanted Asia in the front row, so we both just did what was good for us. A lot of times in the women’s game, people don’t play the matchups, but there was a lot of stuff going on there tonight that was pretty fun. John in a great coach, he always knows the numbers, he is a math guy, I like numbers. Both teams competed in system really well, but Foluke is a horse, she is just tough to deal with. We got the best matchup we could on her for what we have, I thought we did a pretty good job until I saw the stat sheet. I think I’d rather think about what I thought we did. I think we did do a good job on her. It’s just unfortunate for us that they got in swing for match point and we just have to finish.”
Taylor Carico (Sophomore Setter) – Concerning her post-match feelings
“It was just a really good match, it was a hard one to lose also. They played very well and the same with us. It is always the toughest when you are in a battle, it hurts the most.”
Mick Haley – Concerning Zoe Garrett coming out of the match after game two.
“It’s always those coaches that screw it up (joking). No, she is sick. She played her heart our for two games, then she said coach I can’t go. Katelyn Bishop came in a did a great job, she was ready to go. Zoe been playing great all year, she couldn’t go and she didn’t want to penalize the team. If she could have gone, her heart was there and she would have been out there”
Mick Haley – Concerning His and Coach Dunning’s ability to gather talent
“I think Russ Rose addressed it best last night at the banquet when he said he really appreciated being here with all the players he recruited on the other teams (joking). I think we have been blessed with being able to attract some very nice players to our program, I think they really enjoy the school. They fight just as hard for grades and that is one of the things that makes them so special. At this time of year to pursue excellence at two levels at the same time.”
Mick Haley – Concerning late double touch call in game five
“Those things always affect the game. We look at it this way, we have to score so many points and we only want to give three or less. You know we were 8-0 in five-game matches this year, so we felt very comfortable. We had three hitting errors and we had a ball handling error. We ellipsed by one our limit that is safe and it cost us.”
Mick Haley – Concerning defensive strategies
“It wasn’t so much the defensive strategy, it’s a flex defense it breathes, it adjusts to what the opponents do. It’s a very complicated thing, but once the kids get it, it’s very fun and easy to play. It’s more of what we did with the serving that disrupted their outsides. I thought when we lost our focus in serving in game two, it allowed them to get ahead. I told a story about a team that I coached in 1995 that had won two national championships in a row, Stanford, I told my team at that if you play ahead they can’t come after you, but if you play behind you’re in trouble. We won the first game, second game we get behind right away and lose 15-0. We go in the locker room and everybody is looking around and a go, I told you that you can’t play behind. That’s kind of the way it is right now, when you have athletes like that and they are ahead, they feel they can tee off because they can afford to make an error. If you keep them behind, they have trouble producing under those circumstances because everything counts. We want them to feel the way we feel, so we had to play ahead, that is the only way to maximize that. For a while, we had three, they had both lefts and middle hurting us, we had to take one of the lefts away and we were able to do that and we got it down to a pretty good battle.”
Diane Copenhagen (Senior Outside Hitter) – Concerning 14-13 service error, was it tough to bounce back
“Not really, like coach said we were 8-0 in five-game matches. We trusted our team, we trusted the players next to us. We’ve been successful all season with first ball kills, we just trusted our team. Unfortunately it was an error late in the match and it was a close one. We talked about it going into the fifth game that we were going to leave it on the court and go for it. It didn’t go our way, but I think we came back and tried our best.”
Taylor Carico (Sophomore Setter) – Concerning the season.
“It’s been an amazing season from the beginning, our goal was always to get to the Final Four and we did it. We fought and that is what’s most important, that is all we can do.
Asia Kaczor (Senior Outisde Hitter) – Concerning her career and her emotions tonight
“It’s been amazing here, we have had a group of special people that have surrounded us, the coaching staff and trainers and everyone else that has supported us. It’s been amazing, I think we’ve done a lot of work in the gym and we played our best, it was a great game tonight. I made too many mistakes in the fifth game, so I take it on myself.” -
