Purdue Post-Match Quotes

Dec. 9, 2011

Coach Dave Shondell

Opening statement:
"I want to give a ton of credit to Florida State, really really well prepared, one of the best coached teams in the country. Very talented team, well prepared for us, certainly did some things that we were not necessarily used to seeing especially in the big then. It is always disappointing to lose the last match of the year. A lot of people put a favorite tag on us which always makes it difficult when you come in to play, but I am so proud of the team and of the way they played all season long. You can't take away what these seniors lead us to this season, it was a story book season for this volleyball team. Great job by Florida State, if they continue to play like that I think they'll be hard to beat. You just cannot give up runs for points like we did tonight and expect to advance. When you get right down to it from 21-13 in game one, we lose that set and then give up the final 9 points of the set in number 4. That is unfortunately what we will probably remember from this match tonight as opposed to what a terrific season it was and how hard we competed, it just was not happening tonight."

On not winning the first set:
"It was certainly deflating at the time but you don't have a lot of time as a coach or a player to dwell on what transpired. I thought we came back and balanced back pretty good from that, winning game 2 and putting ourselves in that position to go ahead and be in the match. I felt like Florida state exposed things to our team that had not been exposed all season and some things that we knew we could be exposed at and some things we couldn't, I give them credit."

On the 3 seniors and their years:
"I have been fortunate to have them, a lot of great people come through our program but never had a senior class that committed like these 3 did and really overachieved at the level these 3 did. They were so determined to become players in our program and to take us to a new level. Despite the loss tonight, you can't take away the best conference record that Purdue has had since 1985 and best overall record since 1987, second place in the big ten which is quite an accomplishment for anybody. They've done more than I could ever ask from them or expected from them and because of that we will always remember them as being a really special group."

Senior Tiffany Fisher

On the difficulty of the height in Florida State's front row:
"It made it pretty difficult as you can see, they were getting a lot of touches. Every hole we tried to find they were digging that hole, they had really great defense all the way around and we didn't execute smart enough shots. I give full credit to them with their defense and their game plan, we were scouted very well."

Message to the team, wanting them to go further next year:
"Hopefully we can learn from what we did last season, what we did this season, and learn that when we're ahead we can't just let up, we can't think that teams are going to let us coast through, that is kind of what we did tonight. When we had our leads we didn't keep executing, we just sort of fell off. Every team in the tournament is going to fight and wants to win just as bad as you do. We really need to take in to next season, we have great players coming back, l'll be helping coach next year and I just really think we need to take it as a learning lesson. We can come back and we need to fight for every point, we can't lay down for anything." Senior Emily Ehlers

On Florida State's momentum coming into the second set:
"We started out being up so far in the first game, having such a lead on them. Some of us became a bit tentative, not taking aggressive swings, making the aggressive plays in the back court, letting them get back in the game in the first set and then throughout the second match. We knew we needed to gain control and we were able to do that with our ball control, but our ball control didn't stay consistent throughout the game."

Senior Blair Bashen

On feeling it slip away in the last set:
"I definitely think we were fighting our hardest to get back in that game but the ball was falling their way. We got a little tense and were trying to fight back so hard. We definitely didn't want this to be the end of the season, but what can you do? They were a great team, they fought hard and they wanted this game as much as we did so congrats to them."

On expecting a win:
"You always want to think positively, we have great players on our team, they've been great all year and everyone did their job. It is just Florida State, they were the better team. They were really crafty and we aren't used to seeing that in the big ten, making it more difficult to adjust. Our girls played great and it is unfortunate to see this game go but over all I think we did a decent job, just not enough to get the win."

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