Dec. 5, 2014
Ohio State Head Coach Geoff Carlston
Opening Statement …
“Congratulations to Lipscomb, anytime you get an at-large bid – as we did as well – with as much competition that is out there these days it is an honor. I was talking to some people, the more I watched them on video the better they got. I stopped watching video after the second day because I think they play a very aggressive style of volleyball like they did tonight. I was very proud of our team. I thought we played great defense, which we knew we needed to do because they are a such a great defensive team. It was a really good match and obviously we are really happy and excited to move on.”
On the team’s blocking and defense …
“I was really happy with how we played defensively overall. Taylor Sandbothe is a very physical player and we basically told her to just read and go. Honestly, she likes to go rogue anyway, so if we tell her to do something she is just a lot better if we let her go. So that is something we have been working on the last two weeks. Really happy with our blocking effort. I had talked to Kathy (DeBoer) about how that was our biggest concern because they rip and if your hands are not where they are supposed to be or you are just a little bit off they are going to tool you. I thought we did a nice job of adjusting to what they were doing and I thought we were prepared and I think that helps. Offensively, we changed our game plan a bunch because they were really committing on our middles. So we just stopped setting our middles and just worked on setting the pin, which was not really our game plan, but they were committing on Taylor Sandbothe and Andrea Kacsits so we talked to our players and said, `Hey if this is what they are going to give us then let’s attack them on the pins.’ That is what we did and I thought our pins did a really nice job of settling in after the first 15 points, which is to be expected because we have a lot of kids that have never been in this tournament before. It was nice because I like to see our team adjust. Offensively, we really adjusted a lot in terms of what we wanted to do from the very beginning. Defensively, we had a game plan and I thought they executed that really well.”
Ohio State Student-Athletes
#5, Luisa Schirmer, OH, Fr.
On playing her first NCAA Tournament match and what the team needs to do to prepare for tomorrow’s second round …
“I feel full confidence in my team behind me and I think that is a great attitude to have going into our next couple of matches because we know that the competition is only going to get tougher the deeper we go into the tournament. It is great that my teammates are there and they are covering me. Like Erin (Sekinger) too, we can put it out to any pin or to the middles and we are all ready to hit it in. We are going to make great plays together as a team.”
#12, Erin Sekinger, OH, Sr.
On what the team can do to prepare for tomorrow’s game on such short turnaround …
“Well, I think we are going to go and sit and watch both teams and see what they do and how they play. Also, if we take our style of play that we played tonight into our next match tomorrow night I think that will help us and wecan build from that.”
Lipscomb Head Coach Brandon Rosenthal
Opening Statement …
“I would like to first congratulate Ohio State, they played a tremendous game. It is an honor to be here. It has been a crazy and magical year and one that I will never forget as this program continues to take huge strides forwardand just happy to be apart of it.”
On his team’s performance …
“I was real pleased with what we did in the first set. I feel like we put them back on their heels. After loosing the first set I felt good. We made a match-up change into the second set and it unfortunately put us in a bad position with their blockers. Once you set a lineup it’s pretty tough to make moves from that. I wish we had been able to challenge more through that second set. I loved the fight in our team and unfortunately we came up a little bit short. A lot of that is Ohio State and what they did. Their physicality was impressive at times and that’s part of it. We have seen physical play and this team has beat physical play. Tonight Ohio State was better than us. We weren’t as aggressive as I would have liked to see especially in the second set. As far as being a smaller team and quicker team you take a gamble on where do you make the match-up. What we saw in the first set was they were doubling the outsides.”
Lipscomb Student-Athlete
#6 Sophie Kellerman, OH, Sr.
On facing Ohio State …
“I don’t think they did anything that we didn’t expect. We expected the size and physicality. We played hard and at times we didn’t execute but I don’t think that was anything unexpected on the other side of the net.”
