2018 NCAA VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
LEXINGTON SUB-REGIONAL – LEXINGTON, KY.
POST-MATCH QUOTES
FIRST ROUND
KENTUCKY 3, MURRAY STATE 0
Kentucky Head Coach Craig Skinner
Opening statement …
“Well just from the first time we started watching Murray State, until the end of the match, I just have a lot of respect for how hard they play the game, and they have a system that is very difficult to play against, and how passionate they are about competing. A lot of respect for Dave (Schwepker) and his program and what they’ve done, so congratulations to them and on their season. I thought we did a really good job of siding out, receiving serve and scoring when Murray was serving. They have some different serves that, you know, they serve from way off the court that are bombed which took a little bit to get used to, but for us to have 51 kills in that match is impressive defensively and I thought we could’ve done a better job slamming them down, but hats off to them and the way they played the game.”
On what makes their system so complicated …
“They set the ball really high. You don’t see that very often in our league and against the teams we’ve played so far this year, it’s the highest sets that we’ve seen to the antennas so the timing of it is difficult. So you’re jumping and flying and you have a lot more net violations. Typically, when you play a team like that it’s hard to judge a jump and then they back up way off the court, all of them, and juts bomb serves so again it’s a unique style that you don’t see very much.”
On if he thought they would go right for Brooke when she was serving …
“I don’t know if it was particularly game plan to hit the ball at Brooke, it happened particularly in a non-rally so to speak. But it’s sometimes you’ll play against teams that notice when the middle is playing in the back and will try and get some balls over to her, but that many times in one rally I think it had to be a coincidence. You know, she’s in every digging drill we have in practice and I’m proud of her for making those plays.”
On not serving as well as they have this season …
“Serving has got to be very important and I have to give a lot of credit to Murray, they passed really well. Their receive was on point tonight and I thought we were for sure going to have a couple more aces and they played and drove it back to the setter’s head so hats off to them for doing that. It was a unique passing pattern and just getting your feet wet in the first round of the tournament, so I know our team will be ready to go tomorrow.”
On preparing for tomorrow …
“We’ll go through our same game day routine. We won’t have as much on court time, but we’ll have the same amount of time in video and time with the scouting report. You kind of have to narrow down how many of the things you’re going to give them because us coaches know a 1,000 things that Purdue does, but you can only give them like five of six things specifically that we want to focus on tomorrow and then trust the system that we’ve developed over the years to execute. We’ll know the tendency of the attackers and know the tendency of what they do in particular rotations, but then we’re going to have to fall back on our training.”
On competing at the net with Murra y…
“They’re very athletic. I mean, you saw how high some of those kids jumped and they compete and you could see it in their eyes that they were not scared of the moment and not scared of Kentucky and not scared of the venue. A team like that, that’s well coached and ready, I think they’ve been to several NCAA Tournaments and given teams fits so we fully expected that and our team, again like Jen (Smith) was saying, they were neck-and-neck in the second game and it took, I think, McKenzie Watson and Alli Stumler to go back and serve three points at a time and really create some separation. You just kind of work, work, work and then get that two-point run that you serve and we did a good job of that.”
On weathering storms …
“We’ve emphasized and stressed for the last two years that it can only be this moment and we can only be concerned with it. You just talk about it relentlessly all the time and know that’s the only thing that they can control. As a staff we have to understand that too, that we can’t be angry about five points ago or trying to get a three-point run. We can try and execute this particular point. I think that’s what Leah’s (Edmond) referring to and we’ve done a good job of being where our feet are.”
On whether Purdue has an advantage tomorrow because the Big Ten plays back-to-back nights …
“I don’t think there’s a whole lot to talk about because we still have to play and they still have to play. You can say it might be an advantage because they’ve done that more often than we have. Although the Big Ten has gone to Wednesdsay-Sunday or sometimes Friday-Sunday, so it’s not as consistent as it used to be, with television and the Big Ten Network. Sometimes, the day off is too much, too much time off, you’re ready to compete and play and you can see that. Knowing the type of competitors we have, I think you’ll see a team ready to go on the first whistle.”
On if there is a rivalry with Purdue …
“Our program has a lot of respect for Purdue. They’ve had a long tradition of success. Dave Shondell and John Shondell have been there for years and done an extremely good job, and we’ve played them a lot. We’ve played them in the spring the last two years, we played them in the regular season at their place a couple of years ago. So our players understand the level of play that Purdue can play at, and vice versa. There’s definitely a mutual respect for the traditions of the program. It’s going to be a fun match. It’s second-round and high level and our fans are going to get their money’s worth.”
On tonight’s crowd …
“Great crowd. Three thousand people, first round of the NCAA Tournament. I can’t thank our fans enough. They just continue to come and the crowds continue to consistently get bigger and it’s the momentum of our sport and the NCAA Tournament and the parity in our sport. There are so many good teams out there. Our crowds have been fantastic and I love seeing the consistently same faces in and out, the new faces coming, the new people e-mailing and talking about volleyball and our sport, it’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate the coverage as well, from the media to have the respect of what our sport is doing for these female athletes.”
On if he still gets nervous before a match …
“Of course. Competitors get nervous. If you didn’t have nerves, you might as well get out of it because you’re not anxious to get ready for the next one. But when the whistle blows, it’s pretty much the same. You’ve been doing it for enough years, it kind of feels the same. It’s exciting. I love this time of year.”
Kentucky Student-Athletes
#13 Leah Edmond, OH, Jr.
On how much it helps her when her teammates get going …
“It definitely takes the pressure off. But I also have to give it to the sideline because McKenzie (Watson) and Merideth (Jewell) are constantly talking to me and there is constantly people giving me information to help me get kills and get points for the team. So I have to give it mostly to my teammates to give me that ability to get kills when I see teams going after me.”
On who the “alpha dogs” are on the team …
“I feel like everybody on our team has some type of alpha dog mentality. We have really competitive people, we have really talkative people and really great leaders. So I think every person on our team has something that they bring to the team, that brings some type of leadership, some type of dominance.”
On the late second-set run …
“Our team is really good at weathering storms. We’re really good at being able to work our way through. We could be down three points or five points or even one point. We’re really good at staying focused and figuring out how do we score this point, how do we work hard to get this point. I think we’re really good at weathering the storm and that really helps us. So when we get on runs, we just kind of keep that same kind of focus and momentum and that really helps us out.”
#15 Brooke Morgan, MB, Sr.
On what she said to the UK freshmen …
“It’s kind of like just every other game, the same routine every day. Craig does a really good job of setting up the schedule. So, I just tell them to do, normally, what you do for game day.”
On tying her career-high in digs in one rally …
“It was pretty cool, I think. Taking over Gabby’s place (laughter). I do defense every day in practice.”
On playing with Madison Lilley …
“She’s just a really good setter. She knows when to find you and even if the set is off or tight, you know you’re going to get a great set. It’s her mindset that she wants to be the best setter in the country. It’s awesome getting sets from her.”
#17 Alli Stumler, OH, Fr.
On her first postseason match …
“Obviously, I’ve played in big games before, but it’s just a different kind of feel. NCAA Tournament, I’ve never had that title coming into a game before. But I never looked at it as a my or me thing. I have a group of 15 people, coaching staff, teammates all behind me, supporting me. I knew that we could rely on each other and everything would be fine. Really just embracing my first year in the tournament and just excited to see what’s next.”
On what the UK seniors said to the freshmen …
“Just keeping the nerves calm, they are really good about that, whether they play or not. I’ve never played on a team where seniors have such great leadership in all aspects. They just really bring a sense of calmness, no matter what the situation is.
On playing Purdue on Saturday …
“We scouted them before, we watched their game. I think it’s just going to be a different kind of game tomorrow. Obviously today, I heard that the hitters tonight, there was no one over 5-11. Watching the Purdue game, they’re going to be taller than 5-11. It’s going to be a different kind of match for us. We’re going to have to do some different things to win. But I am so confident in the team that we can do those things. Obviously, we don’t have a ton of time to prepare for that, but it’s nothing that we can’t do.”
Murray State Head Coach David Schwepker
Opening statement …
“First off this whole event has been awesome, first class, Kentucky has done a wonderful job from the moment we got here until now. Everything has been set up so wonderful. They have in every way imaginable to make it a first class environment to our athletes. Playing against Kentucky, they are awesome as you guys know, they are a very good team. Going into it we just said our athletes need to go for it. As long as they go for it and don’t back down that’s the only chance we had playing against Kentucky and we did that. I mean Kentucky’s great. I’m not upset about that, I think our girls did wonderful”
On their passing …
“For the most part we did a great job, from what we usually see that’s probably about what they usually do so they did a good job in this kind of atmosphere so I think they did a good job.”
On their game plan coming into tonight …
“My big thing is, I just want our girls to try and get a swing on every ball so sometimes when you try to go too fast and everybody tries to go too fast you start rolling, and I just wanted our athletes to be able to use their athletic ability and hit hard and jump high and go for it all the time. So, that our whole philosophy all year long, don’t ever go too fast.”
Murray State Student-Athletes
#11 Becca Fernandez, L, So.
On combatting the size of Kentucky’s team …
“Yeah, they’re tall, but we have a lot of athleticism, and so our game plan was to use that to our advantage and play everything that we could and, like [Rachel] said, just go for it. The outcome was going to be the outcome and I think we hung on really well today.”
On how Kentucky has changed since the spring of 2018 …
“Other than a couple new girls that we hadn’t really seen before, I think we pretty much expected what we played. But like I said, the people we hadn’t seen before, obviously we didn’t know how they played. But other than that, my expectations were pretty neutral.”
#10 Rachel Giustino, OH, Jr.
On combatting the size of Kentucky’s team …
“What we talked about before this game was, kind of like coach said, we just had to go for it. Obviously, they are bigger than us. Their block is bigger than the block we practice against, so we just had to go for it. And we were going to get catches and they were going to get their blocks, but we just had to keep going.”
On how Kentucky has changed since the spring of 2018 …
“The team we were in spring was completely different than who we are now, so we had to expect the same for Kentucky. They had new players. They had played games, and they had grown over the season, so we couldn’t expect them to be the same as they were in the spring.”
#18 Dacia Brown, OH, R-Sr.
On combatting the size of Kentucky’s team …
“I think the biggest thing for us, we try not to play scared. We don’t play scared. We’ve seen bigger teams. Our conference obviously is not the biggest, but we’re pretty small in our conference, still. So, we just remained aggressive. We also worked on serving tough and everything like that, doing the things that we can do to help our team out because we know there’s a size disadvantage.”
On how Kentucky volleyball has changed since the spring of 2018 …
“I think when we found out who we were playing, we immediately went back to, ‘Oh my gosh, we played them in the spring.’ Personally, I didn’t remember and that’s the way we’re trained. We played them in spring, but what we did in spring didn’t matter. So, I honestly had no opinion of them. I didn’t feel any way. I do think they’re great, but it’s not like I was afraid or intimidated coming into this.”
