Dec. 4, 2008
Alabama A&M Head Coach Nedra Brown
Opening Statement …
“First off, I would like to say that it is a pleasure being here. Unfortunately,we didn’t get the outcome that we wanted. We wanted to at least break throughin the tournament and win a set. That was our goal coming into the tournament,but unfortunately we didn’t do that. I think that the young ladies played okay,but I do think that we could have played harder and had a better run at it. Wejust have to go back and start over and hopefully we will be better next year.”
On falling behind early …
“The first set was actually the best set that we started. And we actually wereat 4-7 and I called a timeout because we had two unforced errors and it tookit to 4-9. I called that timeout to let the girls know that we can’t get thatfar down. And we were struggling with them to stay with them at 4-7, but I dothink that that was the best set that we had. We tried to get back in withintwo to three points but that just didn’t happen.”
On having nervous tension …
“We had our blockers just try to close the blocks more. And basically, we wantedthem just to try and go out and hit. We had been playing passive. I think theyhad nervous tension. I’m not sure. We asked them to go out and be a little moreaggressive and that helped out a little bit. It gave them an opportunity to getsome touches on some balls we hadn’t been getting and force some errors on St.Louis ‘ part. But, that is basically about the closest we could get. They werejust a good team. They really were. They just kept us on our heels the entiretime and we just did the best we could really.”
On St. Louis ‘ height advantage …
“And one of the game plans was that we knew they were going to be bigger. Wetried to get some of the balls of the net and get deep shots. We weren’t goingto work the middle a lot. We knew that they were going to be there so, we askedthe middle to cut every shot that they swung at. We tried to get them to workand move around a lot. We just didn’t want them to sit there and put up a bigwall. But, that was our main game plan.”
Alabama A&M Players
#6 Karensa Beckford, RS
On having nervous tension …
“We did play nervous. We came into the match really nervous, but by the third set we were getting back in our zone. We got a little bit more comfortable. We were swinging a little bit harder and blocking more and being more effective on defense.”
#5 Courtney Jenkins, MH
On St. Louis’ height advantage …
“Yes, they were tall to say the least, but I feel like we are all volleyballplayers. We do the same things that they do. We jump the same way that they jump.So, you have to go out there with that mentality that the other team has beenthrough the same things that you have been through.”
Saint Louis Head Coach Anne Kordes
Opening Comment …
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of the team for making history for us tonight.This is our college’s second NCAA appearance, but our first NCAA win. We couldn’tbe more excited. We get to stay in Lexington another night and we are real proudof the team right now.”
On their offense production …
“I have been real proud of our offense all year and I thought we did a fantasticjob tonight. The libero, Whitney Behrens, did a good job controlling the defenseand passing which allowed us to get all our hitters involved in the offense.”
On her thoughts on Kentucky …
” Kentucky has had a great year this year. They have one of the best offensivesetters in the country. They have a good tandem in the middle, not just withblocking but that are offensively threatening as well. They are a great servingteam as well. This gym has a lot of area for the ball to move around and theycan take their opponents out of their offense. They are a very tough team. Ithink we would match up well with the pace of their offense and the pace of ourdefense as well. It would come down to who could anticipate the offense and putup a stronger block. With everything that is on the line there would be a lotof kids going out there and giving it everything they had and it would be a fantasticmatch.”
Saint Louis Players
#4 Bridget Fonke
On the team’s gameplan …
“We really wanted to serve tough during the game and keep the pressure on them.”
#10 Sammi McCloud
On the team’s performance in the game …
“We just came out there and had a plan. We wanted to execute it, and we did itin the best fashion we possibly could. I think it went pretty well.”
