|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 11, 2013Kelly SheffieldTHE MODERATOR: The volleyball team continues its home stand, hosting No.2 Penn State on Friday and Ohio State on Sunday. Friday's match begins at 7:00 p.m. while Sunday is a 1:00 p.m. start at the Field House. Coach Kelly Sheffield is here. We'll have some opening comments and then take questions. COACH SHEFFIELD: Went one‑on‑one on the weekend and played Nebraska at our place on Friday. We jumped all over them on Game 1. Which was nice. It hasn't been something we've been doing with our opponents too much recently. Game 2, we had a lead late in the game, had back‑to‑back serving errors and about four attack errors. So we just‑‑ we let a great opportunity slip by, I thought. Chance to go up 2‑0 in the locker room. Game 3, heck of a battle back and forth. I thought the defensive intensity from both teams was really, really high. We just weren't able to close that out. Lost 25‑23 in the third. In Game 4, they had, I think, a four‑point lead early, and then just two teams siding out the rest of the game. We couldn't score any points off of our serve, and they couldn't either. But I thought it was a good match. I thought both teams played at a high level. One team had Chelsea Robinson, and one team didn't. I thought that was probably the difference in the match. Against Iowa yesterday, I thought we came out ready to play. You know, we looked‑‑ we talked about we lost the previous two matches of, you know, how are you going to approach that third match? It's a match where we felt like we obviously needed to have. You don't want to go on a losing streak. And coming out 25‑9 in Game 1, I think that showed we were ready to play. I thought Taylor Morey really set the tone early on covering. Her defensive intensity was really good. And it was all weekend. She's an important player for us. She hasn't been playing up to the standards that I think she holds herself the previous few weeks, but she was awfully good this weekend, and we're hoping that continues. I think Ellen Chapman has been kind of an unsung kid on our team, and she's been leading our squad in kills, and I thought she had a really, really solid weekend for us. It was a good match to be able to get some other kids in as well. So looking ahead, we've got Penn State, who's just been‑‑ I mean, they've been pounding everybody the past month, just playing at a really, really high level, which I think a lot of people expected after last year. They returned most of their players. We've got our work cut out for us on Friday. And then Sunday against a very good Ohio State team. We won five at their place. That will be our Senior Night. It will be a big challenge this weekend, but one we're looking forward to. Q. I know every week of game prep is special, but Penn State coming to town Friday, is it fair to say it's the biggest week of the season to this point for you guys? COACH SHEFFIELD: I don't know if it's the biggest week. I wouldn't say that. It's the team that's leading the conference. And so you've got an unbelievable opportunity in front of you. We went to their place. You know, I think we battled with them pretty tight. We let a massive lead go by in Game 1. And in Game 2 we had a little bit of lead, and they kind of pulled ahead. Game 3 was back and forth. We felt like we let an opportunity slip by at their place. They're good. There's no question about it. They're good. They're talented. They're experienced.  But we feel like we've got a pretty good ball club as well. It's one of the monsters right now, and we're certainly excited about that opportunity on our home court to get a piece of them. Q. Do you ever wonder how Russ Rose does it every year? COACH SHEFFIELD: How he does it? He does it in a way that nobody else can. I think he is‑‑ he stays true to himself. He works hard. He's done a great job of recruiting. He gets a collection of talent, and he gets them to play together. He's the standard in our sport. There's no question about it. He's the guy I've got an unbelievable amount of respect for because he does it his way and he gets his kids to play really, really hard. I don't think he was real happy with how hard his team was playing earlier in the year, but that's one of the things‑‑ one of his gifts is he usually gets people to see what he is seeing and to buy in what he wants them to do. So there's no question he's got this team humming and playing at a really high level right now. Q. Kelly, Annemarie Hickey's the only senior. She's been as important as anybody to helping this transition in your first year, hasn't she? COACH SHEFFIELD: She's been massive. I mean, it's‑‑ first of all, she's really talented. She's a captain. Our whole team voted for that. There's so many intangibles that Annemarie brings. Nobody works harder. I mean, nobody spends more time in the gym. And that's unbelievable for the young kids to be able to see that, what it takes to be successful. I think she's absolutely one of the best sproes [phonetic] in the country. Not just in our conference. I think she's one of the best in the entire country. And there's a reason for that. She just works really hard. She is tough mentally. She's‑‑ one area I think she's gotten really good at is moving on to the next play a little quicker than what she has previously. I think a bad play stuck with her a little bit longer than probably what I think it should have. Her tenacity is good. Plus she's just‑‑ she's a really good kid. She's got a good heart, and I think people want to be around her. They want to go to battle with her. We're going to be sad to see her leave. You know, you're excited for her to have the year that she's having right now and the team's having the season that they're having, because there's probably nobody on our lineup, nobody on our roster that loves competing and loves the game more than Annemarie Hickey. Q. Lauren Carlini is the only freshman among the top 25 teams in the country that sits at 5'1". Can you talk about her development this season. COACH SHEFFIELD: You look at any year of the teams that are going to the NCAA Tournament, the teams that are getting at‑large bids, so you're talking your bigger schools. Rarely do you see a freshman setting in the NCAA Tournament, having success throughout the season. Usually, it's older players, or if you are going with a freshman, those are teams that aren't making it into the postseason. So, yeah, I think she is the only one in the top 25, and that's not uncommon. It would be‑‑ it's very rare for that to happen. We lean on her a lot. She's having a heck of a year. She's as good as advertised, in my book. The exciting thing is there's a lot more for her‑‑ a lot more room for growth, and she knows it, and she's hungry for it. She's having a heck of a freshman campaign. Q. Kelly, is there a comfortable number of seniors as you move forward that you'd like to see on a roster any given year? I'm sure you'd like more than one. And what dictates that? Do you‑‑ is it all based off of recruiting and as you forecast classes coming up? COACH SHEFFIELD: Well, we've got one this year, and what do we have next year, seven or eight? That's certainly not the balance that you're hoping to have. This year, we're really excited that we're only going to be losing one for next year, but that turnover after that will be tough. You'd like to have balanced classes, certainly, but there's a lot of things that go into that, redshirting, whether ‑‑ injuries, transfers. And you're not going to say no to a late transfer if they can help you win, even if it makes the class unbalanced, you know. You certainly don't plan for a Jules Mikaelsen to get hurt and miss a season, but when it does, it's a no‑brainer. We want you for another year rather than bringing in somebody else that's younger just so that you can balance out the classes. We'll figure that out as we go along. It's something that we would like to be able to get balanced. I wouldn't say it's a major priority. It's not the top. But you'd certainly like to be able to do that. We may move a scholarship into a later class to try to help that out along the way. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|