Dec. 10, 2011

Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery 

UCLA Head Coach Michael Sealy

Opening statement…
“We knew we had to play ball control to win. It’s funny, my whole career talking to people we have wondered what the volleyball national team would be like if all the NBA players played. What would Kobe (Bryant) and LeBron (James) be like out there? If you want to see that just watch Texas volleyball, those girls are physical and just unbelievable. Friends were all telling me good luck and I’ve teased I have brought knives to a gun fight before, but this may feel like bringing a soup spoon to a gun fight. But we ball controlled, they played a great first set, they passed better and played better defense than we did and I thought we were going to be in for a short, quick evening. We steadied out and knew we had to earn single point at a time and not get too greedy and try to make big runs. Luckily, in that fourth set we had a very big run and jumped out to a big lead and we kind of needed that lead throughout.”

On winning three straight sets to win the match…
“All weekend has been blank. I just haven’t had any thoughts about winning in three or this or that could happen. It’s literally been point by point, one play I caught myself staring at the scoreboard making sure I don’t (focus on the score). I don’t care if we are down by six or up by six we just have to play one point at a time. I’ve played in enough matches like this, when you get one game away from an amazing goal you want to rush through it. As soon as we went up 2-1, we went to the bench and there was just too much energy, the girls realized that we were just one set away from going to the Final Four and you could see them ready for that last sprint to the finish line and I had to bring them back and say it’s not a sprint to the finish line, we have to be ready to play for two more hours and win each point.”

On what is UCLA volleyball…
“This weekend, UCLA volleyball was composed, it was steady and it didn’t ride the roller coaster. We just stayed very composed and steady the whole weekend.”

On what is ahead in the tournament…
“I don’t know, I’ve been really adamant about just one opponent at a time. I haven’t looked at the brackets, I don’t know who we are playing in that next bracket, someone will tell me that now and we’ll get the video and we’ll look at it. I just don’t play that game. I’ve made that mistake getting too involved as a spectator. It just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter when I’m in the Pac-12 season what the Big 10 is doing. It’s just one at a time.”

UCLA Players

#5 Lauren Van Orden, Senior, Setter

On the match…
“I thought the hitters did a great job moving it around. We came together as a unit and I thought it was a great job. We communicated well with each other. We were there supporting and mixing up shots and talking and it was great.”

On remaining calm and confident during the match…
“I think this is further than any of us have gone and I think one of the main things we talked about is enjoying ourselves and having fun out there. We just weren’t having fun the first set and we had nothing to lose, nobody expected us to win. We just went out there and played point for point and did the best we could having fun.”

#11 Rachael Kidder, Junior, Outside Hitter

On her thoughts of the match…
“Tonight shows how well our team plays together. I don’t think there is one person that doesn’t have another person’s back and I think tonight proved it. People were making moves that I have never seen them make before. We all just wanted it so bad and our heart definitely took it to the right place.”

On receiving the most outstanding player award…
“I don’t really have any [thoughts]. I definitely give Lauren (Van Orden) credit. I don’t think I could’ve done anything without her. She constantly puts up a consistent ball and we’re just on the same page. It feels good to have that, but I definitely don’t think I did it by myself.”

Texas Head Coach Jerritt Elliott

Opening statement …
“Well first I’d like to congratulate Mike (Sealy) and the UCLA volleyball program. I thought they played very, very well in this regional, and they deservedly are moving on to the Final Four. Obviously, this is a stinger. It hurts very badly, but I couldn’t be more proud of my team for the way they fought. We went through a lot of adversity this year, they stuck together, went on an amazing streak of 17 games and they grew up, especially being young at a lot of different positions. I felt like last night’s match was very challenging, both physically and emotionally, and with the quick turnaround I felt like we had good concentration today, but I just didn’t feel like we had that extra step, or bounce in our step. That’s not to take anything away from UCLA, they played better than us tonight. They were efficient and they were very good on the offensive side against us. Overall, I thought again, they played well, we didn’t do the things that we needed to, but that was because they were executing in all facets of the game.”

On the path that got them to the regional finals…
“It’s happened the last two years with us. We haven’t been able to get a break. We lost a few players early on, but I think our seniors and our captains have done a tremendous job. It’s one of the things I take a lot of pride in our program about, is they know how to take care of each other, they know how to deal with adversity, and they look at it straight in the eye and go after it. That’s a challenge, and when you coach 18-20-year olds it’s not always easy. For me, the joy comes from seeing an upperclassman and our captains take that responsibility on their own. I can give them lip service and try to kind of direct them, but at the end of the day the team has to be able to make those sacrifices and those commitments to being great. Our team does that. I think it’s why we’ve had a lot of success here in the last few years. It’s a young group that had a chance of winning a national championship and caught somebody that was hot. You look back at the journey, and that’s always hard to do and I’ve done a better job as I’ve now gotten older, of understanding what this is about in coaching and the development of young women is very important to me and I couldn’t be more proud of our program right now. It’s in the most solid state it’s ever been, from top to bottom. The only thing we don’t have to show that is a national championship.”

On the stretch of net violations in the fourth set…
“It’s unusual. There’s no magic there. It’s just trying to execute and being a little tighter. I think they were pressing a little bit, maybe slapping a little bit. We got one on the way up, we got it on a follow through on a swing; it was all different circumstances. I mean, they trained over and over, they didn’t mean to, it’s just a bad streak for us. In the games that we lost, we had too many errors. We had 10 or 11 and that was kind of the Achilles’ heel in that game. We had as many kills as they did, but at the end of the day when you have 11 errors of the 25 points it’s a challenge. What my concern was, throughout this tournament, I knew that we could be good, but could we be efficient enough, for long enough against the good teams? There was a two-game stretch where we weren’t quite as efficient. You look at our hitting numbers and they weren’t where they were all year.”

On potentially being tired after last night’s victory…
“That may be one of the things we need to revisit as a coaches’ association how we go about this. I think the level of parity now is so strong, and you’re starting to see a very, very high level starting in the regionals. For us to have to be the No. 1 seed, playing at 7 o’clock at night, not probably getting to bed until 11 or 12 – it’s not the reason that we lost. I’m not saying that by any means, but it’s a very tough turn around for them to kind of shut their brains off and get rest and get a scouting report and go through that. But the environment was tough tonight. It wasn’t a big crowd, there wasn’t a lot of external stimulus going on, but again, they executed, they fought, they were able to create that stimulus and we weren’t.”

On his excitement for the start of next season…
“I’m not very excited – not yet. Our team needs a little rest, they commit themselves year-round, they stay through summer school and they work really hard. Balance of their life is really important to me so I want to make sure they get some down time and get some time with family. Our staff is able to do that too because this is a very cruel profession. You work hard all year long and ultimately there’s only one coach who’s happy, and one team that’s happy. You have to take a look at the body of work again, and what you’ve done, but once we come back in January we’ll be motivated. We’re going to be very, very good. We have a lot of returners who have a lot of experience; we have a very, very good class coming in. But, that doesn’t mean that we’re good. There’s going to be a lot of different challenges with a lot of new roles and responsibilities and that’s always the fun part about being a coach is learning how to direct that group, and learning the different responsibilities and roles that they have and trying to assign those and make everybody mesh together. We’ve been able to do that the last I don’t know how many years, but it’s been good. Again, that’s a tribute to people like Rachael (Adams) and Bailey (Webster) who have been a part of this because they’re the ones who kind of take the torch and run with it.”

Texas Players

#5 Rachael Adams, Senior, Middle Blocker

On her thoughts of the game…
“They are a great team and kept the ball on us the whole time. They put together a lot of runs and kept composed the whole time.”

On UCLA’s athleticism…
“They had some fast hitters and were quicker than our block and got in our seams.  It disturbed our defense, they have a great team and they had great defense by digging up all our hitter’s balls.  It was pretty relentless and they never stopped and they always worked hard.”

#23 Bailey Webster, Sophomore, Outside Hitter

On her thoughts of the game…
“UCLA did a great job and they were consistent. I want to congratulate them going to the Final Four.”

On dealing with adversity throughout the season…
“I’m very proud of my team throughout the season. I am very lucky I had a chance to play with each one of the girls.  If you look back on the season, we have many moments to be proud of and how we got this far and I will miss not having a chance to play with these seniors one more time.”