Post-Match Quotes - Hawai‘i
Friday, Dec.4, 2015 – College Station, Texas
#7 Hawaii & TCU Volleyball Press Conference
NCAA First Round
Post Match Quotes
Dave Shoji, Hawaii Head Coach
Opening Statement…
“I thought it was an unbelievable college volleyball game. TCU came out playing way better than us in the first game and a half and I thought it could be real quick. Once our girls got used to the tempo I thought we did a nice job staying with them. Slowly we got into a rhythm. It was a battle all the way, and I have a lot of respect with what Jill has done with the TCU program”
On the end of set three…
“At that point you can’t look back we had a lead and we should have closed it but we didn’t. We just couldn’t dwell on losing game three. We had to look forward to game four and I’m glad our team did exactly that. They put that behind them real fast and we knew we had to win game four”
On TCU’s Blocks….
“Not only their blocks they were just a very well skilled team. Their block definitely bothered us. I think they scouted us very well and they knew exactly where we wanted to go. Our girls did a nice job adjusting to where they were blocking and managed to hit well after game one”
On the end of the match…
“Game three was going through my mind but I did not need to talk about that, we needed to talk about how to get the next point”
On being out of timeouts at the end of set three…
“I called two earlier timeouts and so did they. I second-guessed myself at the end, we got ahead in the middle of the game and they came back so I called two quick timeouts. I wish I had one at the end, but you have to call it when you think you want to slow the other teams momentum. We had enough of a lead that that should not have happened, but I was wishing we had one more”
Where they started to play better in the match…
“It got way better I would say mid-way set two. They are going to come after Tai (Manu-Olevao). I think we have three good passers, you have to pick one and usually teams pick Tai. I thought she responded very well after maybe a slow start. Savanah and Greeley really helped by pinching her a little bit so her areas weren’t huge. I thought she really responded and you know she was sticking passes when we needed to. I am proud of her for mentally staying in the game”
On keeping with the rotation…
“I didn’t think that was the solution. I brought Casey in because we were so far behind I thought let’s just give Tai a chance to think about it. That wasn’t the way we were going to win the match. We had to get her back in there and get her confidence back so we stuck with her. Eventually she was a rock for us. I really liked the way Tayler was setting so I didn’t want to disrupt our offense. Tayler blocked pretty well and when she does that sometimes she gets overpowered but tonight she touched a lot of balls so we stayed with her a lot.”
Nikki Taylor, Hawaii Junior Opposite Hitter
On what bothered her the most about TCU’s block…
“I don’t necessarily think it was anything they did, I mean their block bothered me a little bit in the sense that they were just big and well formed. They were, technicality wise, they were great blockers but I wasn’t necessarily working myself to get my feet to the ball and do that type of stuff and I kind of started to do that towards the end but I think it was just a little bit more stuff I needed to do technically with myself.”
On hitting from the back row…
“When I was hitting from the back row, it was a little easier for me just because I was off an edge so much. It was a little easier for me, I could see where the defenders were, I could see where my blockers were up only before I was hitting so it gave me kind of a good read you know where there might have been a seam or where there might’ve been a hole in the defense so that helped me a lot and being able to have a little bit more vision in the back row.”
On getting to play another match…
“I think we’re excited for tomorrow, you know just in the sense that it is more volleyball we get to play. We love playing the game so when we have more opportunities to play it, it makes us really excited so I think we’re excited to go out and show what our team has to offer and show that we have some fight in us.”
Olivia Magill, Hawaii Senior Middle Hitter
On TCU blockers guarding the outside…
“I thought that if they watched our film, they would know that Emily and I are pretty successful middles so that’s hard to get decent blocks up against us, but I think in the beginning they were more focused on the pin and then as the match went on I started having three blockers like every time so they were catching on.”
On her team's will to win…
“I’m just proud that everyone being willing to fight back. That’s really nice to see just everyone having that drive to come together and play really hard so I’m glad that that ended up working out. I thought that set three was really disappointing and that was just like an immaturity type of thing. If you’re up that far, you need to just finish the point but I’m glad that in the fifth set when it mattered we were able to come together and just play.”
