2021 DI WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP - 1ST & 2ND ROUND

December 2, 2021

Ryan Theis

Carsen Murray

Carly Skrabak

Marquette Golden Eagles

Holloway Gymnasium

Press Conference

Dayton 25-20, 25-21, 24-26, 25-23

Marquette

RYAN THEIS: A couple of things. One, as we learned two years ago, Purdue, excellent hosts. They do a great job with the event. Well-structured and treat everybody very well. Great venue for playing. You can already see it filling in for the next one.

Credit to Dayton. I thought they served really, really effective in the first, and I thought in the fourth, as well. I thought they handled our serves relatively well. I thought they played really good offense. I thought their center started out playing really great, and I thought they took away some of our strengths with some of their size and blocking.

I was proud of our effort. Really proud of eight to nine in blocks against a team who's top 20 in blocking in the nation, and just really proud of the effort that our team displayed through all the adversity that we've had. Just couldn't be more proud, and sad to see seven seniors go.

Q. To go down early and then battle back probably says a lot about the resiliency of you guys as a team. What would you think can be a building point for next season? I know many of you are seniors, but to be able to not go out so quickly and fight back, what stood out to you?

CARSEN MURRAY: I would say that just team building and then being together and working on just the little things such as like closing up the block or being in the right spot on defense would really be beneficial for us.

Q. You had a big block there at the end just before Dayton kind of got that point. What was going through your mind at that point?

CARSEN MURRAY: I just wanted to play for the seniors because I didn't want to go down on a bad note or anything, so my mindset was just to play as hard as I can and then focus on what I can control so that for the seven seniors I could be there for them and be that player who can keep the game alive.

Q. Carly, you had some pretty big digs, kept some rallies alive. What did you think of how you guys played defensively team-wise and then specifically?

CARLY SKRABAK: Defensively we definitely could have been a bit cleaner. Credit to Dayton. They had a lot of heavy arms, and they were kind of just exposing some of the areas where we could have been a lot better on defense.

Yeah, I mean, they were just hitting shots that we could have picked up better.

Q. With the way last season went, obviously everybody is affected by COVID, but what did this season for you guys mean, being able to play, and ending your season in the NCAA Tournament?

RYAN THEIS: Let me start just for a second there. I asked our team on Monday -- I knew we had five freshmen there, and I said, Who do we all got here first time in the NCAA tournament? Hands just kept going up. It just is odd to me. I kind of blank out some of the COVID and the smaller field, and we got shut down two weeks before our conference tournament, and I block it out. Carly transferred in, Savannah transferred in, hadn't been to an NCAA tournament. I think eight hands went up.

As the season went on and we dealt with adversity and injury and those kind of things, younger players stepped up. I think we had one major injury and went on the road and beat Butler Xavier and another major injury and closed out the season with another two back to back wins to win a share of the conference championship.

I think that for our young group was eye opening, what we're capable of and what they're capable of.

So I hope it was a valuable learning experience for these guys. Some of those older players had been there before, but some transfers in had not. So it was good to be back in this high pressure situation, and hopefully it builds us forward. I don't know if that answers your question, but I know that came to mind this week as we prepared for this.

CARLY SKRABAK: I know there was a lot of stuff we went through the past few semesters where we were only able to train. It felt like we were in spring season after spring season and just being able to play like a normal season this semester was really exciting. I know it's everything that we've been waiting for and been wanting to do just after training together for so long.

So making it here to the first round and coming here for experience, it's been awesome, and it's definitely been a really great thing to learn from.

I know it's been an honor playing with the seven seniors, and for the younger ones who are returning it's going to be something to look back on and push ourselves in the spring.

CARSEN MURRAY: Yeah, we've just been through so much adversity and I'm so proud of this team and what we were able to do despite all of the injuries and issues that we've had to deal with with COVID and just this season, so I'm proud that we were able to keep going and show teams that we had so much depth and that we are capable of being an NCAA tournament team.