Post Match Quotes - TCU
Friday, Dec.4, 2015 – College Station, Texas
#7 Hawaii & TCU Volleyball Press Conference
NCAA First Round
Post Match Quotes
Jill Kramer, TCU Head Coach
On the match…
“I couldn’t be more proud of my team. I got here in January, and I think they went through a lot of changes at that time. We’ve had a few additions to the roster from last year, and the way that they have bought in and believed in our system this season so quickly and trusted, has been anything a coach would want and more. The way they came in and battled today and continued to battle today, our ‘best player’, if you have to name her that, she touches the ball more than anyone on our team, goes down, and they still keep battling, I don’t know if a coach can be more proud of that. I think they love volleyball, they love each other and they had a lot of fun playing the game and I hope everybody can see that. I loved the way they represent TCU and our volleyball program.”
On coming back in the third set…
“They just believe, they believe in each other, they believe in what we’re doing. You can say that, I think people show that through actions and I think their actions showed their belief in each other and what they were doing, because it’s a hard thing to come back from 24-19, much less against a team like Hawai’i.”
On executing the game plan…
“I thought that we did. I don’t know if Hawai’i did anything different serving wise, but I did feel like about the middle of the match our passing broke down a bit, which didn’t allow us to run our offense as efficiently as we would have wanted. That is a credit to Hawai’i’s serving, but for the most part, that actually might be the best defensive match we’ve played all year. The blocking usually is clicking for us, more often than not, but on floor defense, with the exception of our match against Texas, I think that was one of the best defensive performances that we’ve had.”
On Hawai’i…
“One thing that I didn’t say in my opening statement, and I’m really sorry, is I didn’t congratulate Hawai’i. What a well-coached team and a team that fights. I know they traveled so far to get here, and they had to be dealing with that too. Hats off to them for dealing with that and battling.”
On how they adjusted following Ashley Smith’s injury…
“We made a sub. Some things changed. Our lefts and rights can kind of flip-flop. It was a little bit more difficult with Blaire (Pickens) who is number 24, who went in because she’s left-handed. It was a little tougher to keep her on the left, which is where Ashley typically plays. So we had to make some changes and that’s what why we called the timeout for, and we talked through it. Ashleigh Martin has only been in three rotations all year long and as a freshman, for her to be on this stage and step in and play six rotations that set, go back and serve, which she hadn’t done the whole match, dig some balls for us, I thought she did a phenomenal job. [I was] kind of coaching her up, and quite honestly, the lineup that you saw us in at the end was the lineup that we were in (during) the beginning of the year, except Ashleigh was on the court. Jillian (Bergeson) had played on the left side for us before, so we just moved her over where Ashley Smith was, just so there was very little change. I didn’t want to start moving a ton of people around. I thought they handled it well, we have good volleyball players and they have confidence in their ability. I thought they handled it well. I’m proud of them.”
On Nikki Taylor…
“She’s a tall kid and she’s got a physical presence and does some really nice things. That does not discount anyone else on their team. I thought [Olivia] Magill had a really great match. There was a point where they were running the middle like crazy. We had a tough time stopping them. I thought once we had our serving game going, it as tougher for them to set the middle. Nikki did a good job.”
Alexia Heist, TCU Senior Setter
On the intensity of the match…
“It was such a fun match. We were talking about that in the locker room, how much fun that was and looking around. There were so many people and the atmosphere was so awesome and Hawai’i played great. It was just a battle. Going back to set five, I thought we really fought hard and there was not one point where anybody put their head down. When Ashley went down and we knew that we knew that we were going to come together even closer as a group and battle, and that’s what we did. Unfortunately, we came up short, but we left everything out there.”
On setting the middle…
“We did try to go to the middle quite a bit, both our middles were just working really hard to get up strong. Regan did a great job, as you can see. They were talking a lot and really helping us out. We could set the middle because we had the pass there and so that always helps. They did a great job of working really hard to be open.”
Regan McGuire, TCU Junior Middle Blocker
On momentum during match…
“I definitely felt like the momentum was on our side, but I kind of felt like that the entire game. I had trust in everyone on our team, there wasn’t one person who you would tense up if the ball was going to them. Everyone just played outstanding.”
On leading the team in kills…
“Just knowing that my team had my back. Lexi [Alexia Heist] trusted me so much and everyone else was covering me. Knowing that your team trusts you, you have no worries and you know that you can just swing if you have to.”
