University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Quotes
12/7/2008 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Head Coach Mike Hebert
Opening Statement
“I was very impressed with Iowa State tonight. Their serving was aggressive all night long. When you serve that aggressive, it tends to put the opponent on their heels and that’s where we spent a lot of our time, on our heels. We climbed our way back in the second set, we just needed one more play to take that set and if we did, maybe it’s a five game match. But we didn’t.
We came back to win the third set and I thought we were back in it in the fourth set where we could take it to five sets, but we just couldn’t. We were trying to push a boulder up a hill and everytime we’d get the boulder somewhere it kept rolling back. I think our team had a wonderful season and we salute Iowa State for winning a tough match tonight.
Their setter, Kaylee Manns, was simply outstanding at reading our blocking system and setting to the attack that gave them the advantage. She was the key to their win tonight. We’re disappointed we lost but we had a great season and we’re ready to get on to the next thing.”
On Brook Dieter’s status for the game...
“Brook’s ankle is pretty sore. When she came up and lobbied to be put in, I had to ask myself what I would do if it were my daughter. I just couldn’t bring myself to put her into the match. We certainly could have used her if she was healthy, but I don’t think she was healthy enough to play tonight. She would have, but that was my decision.”
On play from seniors Katie Vatterodt and Kelly Schmidt...
“I though Katie and Kelly really played well tonight. Both of them have had careers with periods of not starting, down periods and high periods. It was really nice to see them finish out strong.”
On defensive problems...
“I thought ISU was making it tough on us. They really spread the ball around to different points of attack that kept us off balance. I think the absence of Brook’s block on the left side really hurt us late in the season and just left too much court to be attacked. Other than that I thought we played pretty well at times. We started pretty slow but we came back and played stronger. I don’t think we lost because of our defense, I think we lost because Iowa State played better.”
Junior Libero Christine Tan
On defensive breakdowns...
“I think the Sports Pavilion was really loud tonight and a lot of times we couldn’t hear each other, which could have been a problem. The ISU fans were really loud and there was a lot of talking on the court. Iowa State played really scrappy and did a really good job. I think we made some good defensive plays but the ball just kept coming back. We have to hand it to them, they did a really good job. We played tough but things just didn’t work out our way.”
On aggressiveness of ISU...
“ISU was aggressive with everything all night. They did a good job swinging, blocking, and serving. It made our offense a little more predictable. They served so we could get some passes but they weren’t on the money so Rachel (Hartmann) could set the offense. It did make it a little easier on Iowa State, I think. They were serving really tough, hitting a lot of seems in between players. They did a good job.”
Senior Outside Hitter Katie Vatterodt
On problems with the offense...
“We had some trouble in service so it was a lot harder for us to run our typical offense. Everything was a little higher and a little slower. They definitely played good defense against us, their setter was reading things really well. I tried just going after them and found a couple holes down the line and got some shots but it was difficult to find those spots.”
On difficulty of playing from behind...
“It’s physically and emotionally tiring. For our entire season we’ve been a clutch team and have normally done very well at coming back in those situations. I think tonight Iowa State was too much. We were getting some frustrating touches on offense that we weren’t used to seeing. I think they overwhelmed us on defense and I think they wanted it more. They played a great match.”
