University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics

Post-Match Quotes
NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championships
Honolulu Regional
Semifinal #2
 
 
USC
Head Coach Mick Haley
 
Opening Remarks
We are absolutely thrilled to have come out on top of this. I couldn’t really relax and enjoy watching the match…but for the spectators it had to be something really special. Hats off to my team for getting out-played in some areas, and still have enough fight to stay in the match and come out on top in the end and I really think that’s special…that’s been a trait that Hawai`i has had against us the past couple of years and they’ve come out on top. Dave said as we were passing in the fourth game, “Are we getting too old for this?” I was about ready to say yes. Great match, hats off to Hawai`i, I thought that was a tremendous effort—inspiring in some cases with the quality of play and the effort by both teams. I want to thank Hawaii for hosting because where else can you play in front of 10,000 people with that much enthusiasm and their ability to root for their team and make it a tremendously positive effort for the student-athletes. Thanks to the hosts and the NCAA for giving us this opportunity.
 
Q: This match was so close, it came down to a matter of plays. Talk about how close this game was.
 
Hawai`i got more kills than we did in this match, and we were still able to win with our defense, which is something we’ve been working on all season. Kendall (Bateman) has carried us—she either leads the country or is in the top two or three in assists per sets. And our middles have been very strong which opens up our outsides and Hawai`i did a marvelous job in controlling what we could do. There were probably 10-or-15 critical plays, but I would put it on the second game. Because if we were 0-2 going into the third set, we would have had a problem I think. That grit to come back in the second set was critical for us to stay in the match and to get it to where we had a chance to win it.
 
How do you prepare for tomorrow’s match against Pepperdine?
We went in the locker room, counted to three and let out a big yell and then we put the match behind us and started to focus on tomorrow. If you don’t do that we won’t be able to play tomorrow. We are hydrating right now, we are talking about the opponent right now and move forward. We’ve practiced very hard on the mental stuff this year. I think with Kendall’s leadership and Alex’s stellar play we really have the right parts to be able to do this. They have characteristically been able to handle game plans three hours before the match, and do really well. Last year in the Regional finals, we changed our defense at 11:00 am Saturday morning, before the Stanford match. And I thought it was a mistake, but it was the only thing we could do to beat Stanford and we were still down 14-to-11 in the fourth game and came back and won 16-14, so I’m really proud of this team, they’re very smart, they study hard—both in the classroom and on the court, so I think we will be able to implement whatever we have to do tomorrow against Pepperdine.
 
Kendall Bateman
I think when you go to start the fifth set and even though they lost the fourth set, our team realized that and realized we had to get a good start in the fifth set. And that’s what we did. It’s a clean slate in the fifth set and it could go either way.
 
I think Hawai‘i is always fun to play. They have some great players on their team. We’ve been playing against Danielson and Hewitt since we were freshman. They always put up a fight and always competitive. It’s been fun the past four years.
 
Alex Jupiter
It was pretty clear that nobody was going to give up and we were going into a battle or a war and it was going to be who wanted it the most and who hustled the most. We had to just be ready for everything and just stay calm. It was a very good experience, and as seniors I am very glad I got to play that game and I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.
 
I was kind of stuck in my state of mind of just pounding away. But thankfully my coach snapped it out of me a little bit. I just had to go into an uncomfortable place of trying to place the ball more. I usually have more control hitting the ball harder, but obviously it wasn’t working and they had me figured out. I just had to go with thing I wasn’t comfortable doing but just keep trying. I had my team to back me up.
 
You can use the crowd as an advantage by absorbing the energy and intensity regardless of who the fans are cheering for. Just take in the experience—they got to see really good volleyball and you’re playing in front of this crowd, and it just makes you motivated.
 
Hawai‘i Head Coach Dave Shoji
Opening Statement…
Obviously a disappointing loss for us, but im so proud of my team. That has a heck of a match between the 7th and 10th best teams in the country. That’s a joke. It’s disappointing that this match had to played in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. Two great teams, two teams worthy of the Final Four. But having said that I though the match could’ve gone either way. It was a greatly contested game there were ups and downs on both sides of the net. And they made the plays at the end of Game 4 and at the end of Game 5. Good luck to USC, they’re going to have a hard time tomorrow night because they expended a lot of energy tonight. Anyway, hat’s off to them.
 
On the tightness of the match…
Every game could’ve gone either way. So it is one or two plays that make a difference in winning or losing. Im sure when we look at the film, we had a lot of chances to convert and we just weren’t able to. But its so fragile between winning and losing, its just sad that someone had to lose tonight.
 
 
Hawai‘i Outside Hitter Kanani Danielson
On being unable to finish off games 4 and 5…
A lot of it is just finishing the game. You know there’s a lot of times where we had a nice run and a lot of cushion to finish but we couldn’t find those little bitty plays that you usually take care of in the WAC.
 
On the difference in the match…
When we (play) against a good team like SC, you know you can’t get away with those easy things. That’s where it happens, where you have to show up with good technique, it’s just the main thing we broke down in passing a little bit towards the end or at least the end of each game we lost because when we did have our passing down and got our middles involved and keep the blockers guessing instead of just releasing to the outside, me and Jane but its just something, like Dave said, could’ve gone either way. We didn’t make those little plays to be the winner tonight.
 
On the sold-out crowd…
Its always a blessing that they were able to come out and support us no matter the outcome. It was amazing to play. It wasn’t like we had to play extra just to make sure they are happy, we know that they were with us every step of the way. Its hard to swallow these kinds of games especially when its only the Sweet 16 going to the Elite 8. Its something you want to save for when you want to play in front of this kind of crowd and the Final Four.
 
Hawai‘i Outside Hitter Chanteal Satele
On UH’s comeback in Set 5…
I think just the heart to win, you know all of your teammates, everybody had it in to them to win this game and we have the heart and the energy.