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NCAA WOMEN'S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPDecember 15, 2011Rachael KidderKelly ReevesMichael SealySAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: SEMIFINALS FLORIDA STATE - 0 UCLA - 3 THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome the UCLA Bruins. To my immediate right is Coach Michael Sealy followed by sophomore outside hitter Kelly Reeves and junior outside hitter Rachael Kidder. Coach, an opening statement, please. COACH SEALY: I'm glad that match is over. I was worried about it going in. I think, technically speaking, we're really good with teams that challenge us vertically, that are really physical and go over the top. The teams that have a horizontal component and run more plays along the net we tend to struggle with more. So after watching their video, I just knew it could have been a match that we might have had issues with. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Coach, you went with a 5‑1. Why? And what are you going to do on Saturday? COACH SEALY: Obviously it's the way we have to play. The 6‑2 experiment, we played two matches with it. It looked promising against Arizona State. And at that time our offense was so tragic and just stagnant and nothing was clicking that we just had to try something. So I don't regret it. It's something that we had to see if it was possible. But all of a sudden, once playoffs started, we started being us again. Then 5‑1 obviously works better for us. But as far as USC and Illinois are concerned, it could be a 6‑2. Q. For each of you, in order, if you don't mind, Rachael if you'll go first. Rachael, would you talk about your setter tonight? RACHAEL KIDDER: Yeah, Lauren was great tonight. I think she did a good job mixing up the offense. She's never been really predictable. I think it's hard to know when you're on the other side of the net where she's going to go. And she just played with a lot of confidence. She was calm. And she made it really easy to stay calm and feel comfortable out on the court with her. Q. For you personally, it looked like you and she were in as good of sync as two athletes could be tonight. RACHAEL KIDDER: Yeah, we had some issues. I think it was both sides, some sets were a little wide and I was going earlier sometimes. Normally her and I are in sync perfectly. I don't know if tonight it was just a little off. But I don't think it really affected us that much. COACH SEALY: She has to give herself compliments only if she hits over 500. 462 in her mind isn't good enough. Q. Kelly, could you talk about Lauren, too, please? KELLY REEVES: I thought she did a really good job tonight. She ran a really fast offense. She ran the offense really well. I thought she got everyone involved really well. And, I mean, we weren't very predictable. We weren't just setting to one person. I thought we did a really good job mixing it up, running the middle, and I thought she did really good. So great job, Lauren. COACH SEALY: We hit 328, sided out at 78percent. We didn't set a ton of middle, but I thought she set what was open, situations where I thought their middle stayed with our middle a lot so we could get Rachael one‑on‑one outside and create some good opportunities on the pins. And obviously if that wasn't the case, then she definitely could have gone middle if she needed to do. I think she's pretty in tune with who is open when and why. Q. Coach, their middles did get some quicks on you as they got more confidence. Do you have any concern about that? No. 14, she was really connecting. COACH SEALY: She hit for a great percentage. That was my concern going in. Luckily I think we served tough enough. They run a pretty unique where they're running along the net, so a bad pass, it makes it even more difficult to connect with. So that was the big thing after watching the video and walk through it in practice. We had our middles running that same play in practice. We couldn't stop it. In the back of my mind I was like: Why aren't we playing this play? And the second thing I thought is: That can be an issue. And the only hope was we can serve tough enough to where they can't set it as often as they want to. Q. And your serving? COACH SEALY: Serving was good. I think we've been good for a while. I think we hit targets well. I think we can hit seams well. I think we tried to serve their front row hitter a bit and put more on their plate to deal with. So it's not like we had a ton of aces. There's only, well, five aces, which is really good. But five aces, four errors is a great percentage. I just thought we hit the spots really well. Q. Rachael, how does it feel to bring this program that has such a rich history finally back to a national championship match? RACHAEL KIDDER: I mean, it feels great. I think most of us, when we decided to come to UCLA, knew that the program's been really good in the past. And I know when I came in, I was really looking forward to turning it around hopefully. That was the goal. I mean, this year we definitely did that. It feels really good to just know that we worked really hard all year and we're pretty confident the whole time. So everything we did is starting to pay off. It feels great. Q. Rachael, obviously you had a great season, but I guess players kind of distinguish themselves what they do in the postseason, and at least talking about regional tournament, it kind of seemed like there was a carryover from night to night. Is that kind of a mindset to have? RACHAEL KIDDER: Yeah. I think players' mindsets definitely change in the postseason because everyone knows it's crunch time. And, I mean, obviously you can't lose, so I think that just that makes people more aggressive. Not that we weren't aggressive during the season, but I think it was just it's more like‑‑ I don't know how to explain it. But you definitely have a lot more like drive and you know that every point matters so much. So you put everything you have into every single point. COACH SEALY: There must be a misprint on the box score. Rachael had 12 digs. Something's not right here. RACHAEL KIDDER: Probably true. Q. Coach, as you left the floor, Mick Haley said something to you; you said something to him. What did you guys say? COACH SEALY: He just said congratulations. I think there's always the‑‑ it's not a fight, but everyone wants their conference to do well. You want the conference to have respect. So I think once the brackets worked out to where you could potentially have all Pac‑12 final‑‑ and I was talking to Mick and Tim Nollan, the assistant coach, all year about Stanford and Cal being so dominant for so long, and just trying to get the tide turned back to Southern California. We were talking about how great it would be if we both had successful years to bring some attention back to So Cal from Nor Cal. He was saying congratulations, and I said good luck and see you in a couple of days. Q. Do you expect USC to beat Illinois? COACH SEALY: No expectations. I literally haven't seen Illinois play once. Tonight will be the first time. I think they're both big and physical. I think they match up in such a way that it's anybody's match. It's just big physical athletes. You know exactly what play they're going to run. There's not a ton of nuances and differences in their offense. It's just going to be big athlete against big athlete, see what happens. Q. Kelly, if there was maybe a concern you guys had is that you've had a little bit sometimes of let‑downs in the third set. And that didn't happen at all tonight. Did you guys talk about that a little bit, because the first two sets you were so dominant? KELLY REEVES. Well, I thought when we had the intermission we went in, talked about we just need to keep working hard and no let‑up and don't take it for granted. Because in season, Pac‑12, we would kind of come out a little sluggish. I think we worked really well as a team and just realized we can do this. And we looked each other in the eyes and said let's go out and have fun and play volleyball. I thought we did a really good job and we were very patient and we didn't sprint all the way through, but we took it one point at a time and just enjoyed every moment. So that was good. Q. Rachael, do you guys have any kind of different comfort zone in the 5‑1 than a 6‑2? RACHAEL KIDDER: I think 5‑1's only more comfortable because we'd been running it all year. I think if we had run the 6‑2 for a couple more matches we would have been comfortable. I think we trust each other enough, the girls on the bench, anyone that comes in the game, like we trust each other to know that they're going to get the job done. So the 6‑2 wasn't really a matter of not being comfortable. I think it was just the 5‑1 works out better for our team. Q. Kelly, was your offense tragic and stagnant? COACH SEALY: You can tell the truth. What I said. KELLY REEVES: Repeat the question. COACH SEALY: I said we were tragic and stagnant. Is that true? KELLY REEVES: Kind of. Q. Never mind. (Laughter)       Q.Rachael, it's clear Coach likes to tease you a little bit. But he was named Coach of the Year today and I wonder if you could talk about what he's brought to the program and how he has probably helped or inspired you. RACHAEL KIDDER: I mean, I'm not just saying this because he's sitting right there, but I think that he's like definitely the best coach I've had ever in volleyball. Sometimes he'll tell me to do things and I'll be like you're crazy, that's not going to work. And I do it and I'm like it totally works. He has such like intelligence about volleyball, he knows what he's talking about all the time. He's definitely an inspiring person because even though he makes fun of me a lot he definitely gives me confidence too. He knows how to bring people up when they're down. So I think he's been definitely a great coach for the past two years, and I'm really grateful that I got to play for him, that I'm currently playing for him. COACH SEALY: That wasn't so painful, was it? RACHAEL KIDDER: He didn't pay me for that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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