Dec. 2, 2011
Kentucky Head Coach Craig Skinner
Opening statement
We’re just really excited, and not just because we won the match, but how we performed tonight. It was a heck of a team effort- some people stepped up big time. Its always unique in how we perform and someone else steps up and makes plays for us to be successful. For whatever reason, I had a feeling when we coming over here on the bus that we were ready to go, and the team definitely proved that thought right. Congrats to A&M for a great season and we’re just happy the way we performed in today’s match.
Talk about how serving helped you in tonight’s match
Our serve has been a weapon of us all year. A&M did a pretty good job of passing for a while, but we’re able to get some people on their heels at times, and I thought we did a nice job of that. Even though we had a few misses, the way we were contacting the ball was well worth the risk.
Kentucky Players
Sophomore Outside Hitter Whitney Billings
You had a good day offensively, talk about what you saw in the defense.
I don’t really look at their defense, I just swing away.
On getting to return to Kentucky for the third round
It’s a huge advantage for us, obviously we’re going to have a big opponent and they’re going to get us into it.
Junior Setter Christine Hartmann
What kind of things did you see from A&M today
Before very game we always have our scouting reports and our coaches do a great job of getting us ready to go. I don’t think there was anything we weren’t expecting. And number 14 played great against us but we knew it was coming. So we knew she was going to get her kills, but we were also prepared for it.
On returning to play their next match in Kentucky
It’s exciting that we get to go back, we were hoping we could host the first and second rounds.
Texas A&M Head Coach Laurie Corbelli
Opening statement
I am really proud of my team for the season they had. 23-8, back to the playoffs, second round. We’re heartbroken about the loss, but they deserved the win today. They played great. I’m proud of my team and I told them to hold their heads high. They’re definitely Fightin’ Texas Aggies, they fought the whole game tonight. We got outplayed, it happens.
On Kentucky’s serving attack
Serving was really all to more than I was expecting. Very aggressive. They did a great job of taking us out of system and maybe the best job of any team we’ve seen all year. I can honestly say until I was on the floor watching the serves, maybe they were just bulleting the serves tonight more than ever. I don’t know what to compare it to other than what we’ve seen, but this is the toughest we’ve seen.
Did you feel like Kentucky took a hold in the first set?
Yeah, they stayed on top of it. I felt their serving took us a little out of rhythm, obviously our passing rhythm, and kept us from really getting our team attacking going. We’re very dependent on team attacking. We can’t go 1 on 6 with many teams. But we kept fighting to get into our tempo. I saw glimpses of it, and I was pleased because we weren’t making many errors, they just played great defense. They were in the right spots, they just played better than us.
Can you talk about Kentucky’s block and how effective it was
It was a good block. I don’t think it was anything that we haven’t seen much of. The fact that our tempo wasn’t there isolating anyone was a problem. It’s usually one hitter on one blocker when we get our tempo going. It got us to where we were out of system, and it certainly maximized their block. But really I thought we handled it well, they only out blocked us by three. I just don’t think it was the blocking as much as it was the serving, and the passing. They passed needles tonight.
Texas A&M Players
Senior Outside Hitter Kelsey Black
I don’t think that we were pressing. I think we were working so hard to counter attack what they were bringing at us, and that at some points in the game we got more focused on what they were doing and not what we were doing. I think that caused us a couple runs against them.
