Colorado-San Diego Quotes
August 28, 2015 | Volleyball
Colorado-San Diego Quotes
Head Coach Liz Kritza
General statement about tonight's match.
Obviously, that's not the start we wanted for our home opener. I saw a lot of things that were good, but I also saw a lot of areas where we fell short tonight. In the huddle after the match, that is the most telling part of this team—nobody's okay with it, nobody's satisfied with it. First match of the year against an opponent that is as strong as San Diego is what we designed this schedule for. I think that some weaknesses were exposed tonight that we didn't adjust quickly enough to. And that's story of this match. I think we had opportunities in this match to capitalize, and where we could have won more points in particular rotations. We didn't execute it tonight. They have assured me, as I am quite certain, that we won't do that again. Tough losses like this, particularly early in the season, serve us well as we are developing the team. It is something I know will help us as we continue to play, as early as tomorrow. It is not something that we can hang our head, lick our wounds—there's no time for that. We have a bigger, faster, hungrier team that already has a win under their belt to prepare for tomorrow. And we'll be ready.
There were many serves that went out of bounds, do you think it put the team in a hole?
Particularly in the first set, we gave away 12 points in unforced errors: hitting errors, service errors. There is an aggressiveness that we want behind the service line, but if we aren't matching our ace's to errors, that's where we'll have to scale back some of our servers. We want to make sure that our service game is prepared for tough opponents. A lot of times you are just hitting zones or just lobbing balls in, it might as well be a given point. The intent behind service errors are players working to be more aggressive. First match of the year, early in the season, I expected there to be more service errors. We can live with them as long as we are learning from them—as long as the aces are also increasing, as long as the team that we're playing against isn't firing on all pins and system all of the time. That wasn't necessarily the case for about half of these service errors.
Lost last two season openers and went on to make the NCAA tournament
I like these interesting historical perspectives, but I would have liked to have that win. It's the first match of the year. I trust my team. They will do what it takes to make individual corrections; and as a team, we are as tight and whole as we have ever been. I think you saw moments where we were down and you could have counted us out, but they keep fighting back. And now we have to make sure that we are the aggressor, so were getting on top and holding that lead. There are two sides to momentum shifts in volleyball, and we were on the catchup side and the downhill side for much of this match. Now we need to make sure that we are becoming a lot more adaptive and being the first one out of the gate.
On Play of Freshmen
“Naghede [Abu] went in and did her job; what we needed her to do was provide a bigger, physical presence middle-blocker-wise, and she did just that. I think she went out kind of wide-eyed, listened the older players, took directions as she was going into the court, and changed something. That's what you want somebody off the bench to do; you want them to affect change as to what's happening on the court. Abbie D'Agosta, I think when she gets this match under her, it's probably really good for her to get some of those jitters out. That kid can play. Ryal, my recruiting coordinator, told me that when she (Naghede) gets it, let her go, and she'll come up with some really good plays for us. She's still young. She'll get some looks and her job is to provide some relief in the serve/receive area and get some balls off the floor. We're on the losing side of the digs tonight. We put some more of those defensive players in there. [Gabby] Carta-Samuels made an appearance as well at the end, another defensive player. We have to pump this ember of defensive play up, because that's directly connected to keeping our opponents' hitting percentage down. I think that's something they see as an opportunity to contribute to the team, and that role is pretty valuable. I'm proud of them being able to jump in. It's not easy, as a freshman, but at the same time I think that's what a complete team is for, and at different points in the season I have to develop our team and develop our bench. We're going to need everybody.”
On The Turnaround in the Third Set
“Well, we started blocking, and then we actually started to force our middles a bit; nobody was really setting the middle on either side of the net. If you look at the stat sheet, we didn't get the ball enough to our quicker attackers; that's something we have to continue to work on. I think it's so much easier to throw the ball up to Alexis [Austin] and Gabby [Simpson] and Joslyn [Hayes], but part of our offense is to stay completely balanced, and to do that we have to have passing and have to stay in system. I think we missed some opportunities to force our middles and keep speed in our offense, because that's something that works for us. These hitters, they know how to take a ball like that; they like it that way. It's become one of their traits and strengths. When we go away from it, we're just choosing a really hard way to play our type of volleyball. It's not the most effective and clearly not the most efficient way. We have to get back to that, and we will.”
Colorado Players
Alexis Austin, Sr., OH
What Did San Diego Do Well Tonight and What Needs Work For Tomorrow's Match Against FSU?
“Honestly I don't feel that they [USD] did a lot. Honestly for us it's just simple. We just need to play volleyball. We had most of the errors and gave them those games. So I can't say that they really frustrated us. We did have a few freshmen on the court that might have gotten frustrated, since it's their first time being out there. Other then that, we just need to pick it up on our end.”
How Do You Go About Making the Corrections for Tomorrow's Match in Such a Short Time?
“For us each player is accountable for any mistakes that they made. We know what we need to work on personally, from the work put in during the preseason. So if we see a lot of that in the games, then we should know what we need to work on for the next game. Since it is such a quick turnaround, it's not like we can go practice it. All we can do is go home and rest, and come back tomorrow prepared to play.”
Cierra Simpson, Jr., DS/S
What Did San Diego Do Well Tonight and What Needs Work For Tomorrow's Match Against FSU?
“Along with what coach was saying. We just didn't make adjustments as quick as we should have. I think we can take that and learn from it for tomorrow. Now the first game jitters our out, even though we can't use that as an excuse. I think we know what we need to work on for tomorrow.”
How Do You Go About Making the Corrections For Tomorrow's Match in Such a Short Time?
“I agree with Alexis. I think the fact that we're going to have a scouting session for FSU tomorrow morning before we play will help us a lot in knowing what their tendencies are and what they do and don't do. I think we can really take advantage of that tomorrow morning and go from there.”
