|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WOMEN'S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPDecember 19, 2013Deja McClendonRuss RoseAriel ScottKatie SlaySEATTLE, WASHINGTON Penn State – 3 THE MODERATOR: Joining us is head coach Russ Rose, Katie Slay, Ariel Scott and Deja McClendon. Coach, an opening statement. COACH ROSE: I thought we handled the ball really well, had a really solid game plan, and especially the seniors and Micha played a great match. To control the ball, it gives you opportunities to do some things. We felt we were a good serving team, didn't feel it was only going to be a one‑way track where they would be able to control everything we were doing. We felt we could control the ball. If we didn't have great passes, we thought we had outside hitters that could score. We worked hard on a game plan, and I thought the players played really well. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Katie, Coach talked about the game plan. Did you do everything you wanted to do tonight against them? KATIE SLAY: We know they have some really great players on their team, that obviously Vansant is one of their go‑to hitters, so she definitely had our attention. And they have Kaleigh Nelson on the right side who takes big swings. We knew we had to get to her. Then they have a good group of players who play their roles well. So we wanted to disturb that and take care of our side of the court. Q. How much do you guys feel like your height played into it at the net? It seemed like they really seemed to struggle to get balls blocked by you guys and block shots. KATIE SLAY: Height is always helpful. Maybe not always off the court but on the court. And my dad has always said you can't teach height. I guess it comes to our advantage. Q. Deja, your defense, your digs tonight, what were you seeing that allowed you to get to so many balls? DEJA MCCLENDON:  I think our blockers did a great job setting up. I had a good view of the hitter and then we did a lot of scouting. Our coaches helped a lot, just to plan where they're going to hit the ball. Q. On that scouting, was part of the plan, just to really shut down Nelson so that Krista is going to get her kills? But Stanford did that in the ‑‑ the last time Washington lost. Did they just say she's going to get her kills, let's stop Kaleigh Nelson at least? Was that part of the plan? To Deja. DEJA MCCLENDON:  I think she got the second most amount of balls, so we focused a lot on blocking her across like the first couple games, and that wasn't working out as well. We had a couple digs on the line. But then we started blocking the line more and focusing on taking her. I think that helped us a little bit. Q. Ariel, were you surprised how easy you won? ARIEL SCOTT: No, I wouldn't say it was easy. We've been doing a lot of scouting. We've been working really hard at practice. I'm proud of us, but Washington is a great team. Q. Let me rephrase. By such a wide margin and the scores are so lopsided. Did that surprise you? ARIEL SCOTT: I guess. Micha served really well. And when she does that, it's hard to stop that, I guess. Q. It appeared almost easy. Was it? ARIEL SCOTT: No, like I said, I don't think it was easy, but we've been focusing on playing loose and relaxed, and we did a good job of that tonight. Q. You were so effective. And you had five hitting errors. Was there a particular strategy? Were you just getting good sets and passes? Explain why you were so efficient. KATIE SLAY: Well, I think it comes with playing together. When ‑‑ all week we've been having fun at practice. We had really fun at open practice on Wednesday. We stay loose as a team, and then when we get on the court, we're all together. Deja and I like to look each other right in the eyes a lot. And we just like stay together on the court as a team, and then it all flows from there. Q. You guys had a tough one against Stanford. Did that help prepare you for coming here, you think?? DEJA MCCLENDON: I would definitely agree with that. There's a ton of matches throughout the season that we had that were like that. Like Coach likes to talk about the grind. Knowing that you can get through those matches helps you, and I think a lot of it we came into this game knowing we had to start out well. You couldn't start out awful and still win this match. Q. Deja, your digs you practiced as much as your hitting tonight. I haven't seen that a lot. Is this typical of how you play, or was this a special difference? I don't mean to make you brag about yourself, but just curious about how you evaluate that. DEJA MCCLENDON:  I can only think about the ones I missed. I feel like there's so much more we can get better at. But at the same time I'm really proud of our team, and I think the scouting really, really helped us. And especially me digging those balls, because I felt like I knew where it was going. ARIEL SCOTT: It's typical, yeah. Q. You mentioned scouting. What were you expecting from Washington? What did you see? DEJA MCCLENDON: We thought that they were going to hit a lot of balls over Micha. So a lot of the back, shading, something we had to think about. COACH ROSE: That's enough on the scouting report. THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. Questions for Coach. Q. Did you expect an outcome this decisive against Washington? COACH ROSE: I mean, you expect an outcome. You don't know how everybody's going to play with 15,000 people. But I was confident that we had a good game plan, and the players were good listeners. And, you know, some of them have been here before so they know a little bit about ignoring, as we discussed yesterday, the noise and just going out there and doing their job. Q. When was the last time a match of this significance that you won like that where you really just steamrolled a team? COACH ROSE: I don't look back, my friend, you know. Q. Try. COACH ROSE: That's why there's media guides. I don't know. All right. Washington's a very good team from a great conference. They won their conference. We struggled in our match when we played Stanford because Stanford's a terrific opponent. And we played Utah, and Utah's very good. We knew that Washington was going to be very good. We didn't think that they had a real significant advantage having only played one match in here and we hadn't played any. So you've gotta play. You've gotta play the game. You've gotta serve. You've got to pass. Deja's a wonderful young person. She's been our best player all year. The things that she does are the intangibles that coaches recognize more than people who look at the box score. She's our best passer, our best defensive player, our best left‑side blocker. And there's times she's unstoppable hitting. But the team is never about her. Tonight A. Scott had a terrific night. Katie had a great night. We thought we could do some things out of the middle of the court if we passed the ball well. They're a system team. If you have some veteran players that understand part of what they're doing, you might be able to exploit some things. And I thought we had a good plan for the evening, and we were fortunate that we controlled the ball and could do that. Q. Is the preparation and the scouting reports, is that pretty routine for every match you played during the season, prepared the same way, or is there a little extra when you get to this point in the season? COACH ROSE: I prepared the same way for 35 years. So I don't know how many hours sleep people have had since we had the press conference, but I'm thinking I was on the lower end of that continuum. I mean, coaches only control certain things; you need to work at those things. If you don't work at those things and just assume you're going to win, I think you're making a bad decision. That's my opinion. We work really hard. Watch a lot of video. I watch an incredible amount of video. Q. Hancock had 27‑point serving runs in both the first and second sets. How much of an impact overall did serving have on this outcome, your impressions of her? COACH ROSE: I thought she played really well tonight. That's what I said to her after the match. And I said: Plus, when was the last time I said you played terrific? And she goes: I'm a junior...I guess that's it. I thought she played great. We score a lot of points when she's serving. The impact of her last year being hurt was not the ace generated, it's the number of points we scored. We score more points with her serving than the other rotations combined. So we have a good front row. We have an aggressive serving alignment with her and Nia. So I thought she played well. She had some good blocking moves. She played good defense. Other than two or three sets that I thought were questionable and choice, I thought she played a great match. Q. You mentioned she missed‑‑ COACH ROSE: She was hurt in the Final Four last year. Q. What do you feel you did to defend them so well on the front line? What made you so effective in the matchup? COACH ROSE: There's pressure on both teams. So we had some older kids who have been here. I think they were less distracted by certain things. And it was important that we came out strong in each of the three games and‑‑ I don't know. It's hard to really say. Jim's going to have a better handle on his team. But we applaud their season. To win a conference and get to the Final Four is really hard. And we're thankful we're going forward. And we'll get a little rest tomorrow and get some preparation and hope that we're ready to play Wisconsin on Saturday. Q. You and Jim are friends. Does it sting at all winning on a friend like this? COACH ROSE: We're still friends. It is what it is. Part of coaching is in the preseason you can schedule the people you want to play. In the regular season in your conference you play the people you have to play. And then the NCAA Tournament puts it together and you play who they want you to play. So we played before. Jim and I have had a lot of opportunities to play in the spring when he was at Kansas State and even when he was at Washington. So like you said in his press conference yesterday, he wins and he can zing me for a year until maybe we play again. But everybody has a lot of pride in their program. It was a great crowd tonight. Community came out. I think those are the things we should be applauding; that we had such a great crowd for a volleyball match tonight. Maybe some people thought the first match was an upset, and maybe some people don't. I didn't think Wisconsin thought it was an upset. And they played really hard and they play tough. And we look at the outcome of our match, and we're happy that we won because we knew this was going to be really a tough match. So maybe it doesn't look tough, on paper it didn't look so tough, but you know it's tough in preparation. It's tough in keeping everybody focused and doing the things that we need to do. But I thought it was a great effort tonight. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. 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
|