University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Ohio State 3, UT 2
December 02, 2011 | Volleyball
Dec. 2, 2011
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TENNESSEE HEAD COACH Rob Patrick
(opening remarks)
"The first thing I want to say is Ohio State played a great match. They were very aggressive in all facets of the game, but I'm very proud of the way our players gave everything they had. The one thing I always tell our players is we can always walk off the court when we have given everything and left it on the court. We did that today. We had a lot of injuries, a lot of adversity, sicknesses and all sorts of things this year. I'm not using that as an excuse because I don't want to take the great victory that Ohio State had today away from them, but it finally caught up to us.
"The ability of just having the players we had and not being able to make any subs or even in our practices not being able to rest anybody and not being able to practice as much as we needed because we didn't have the bodies finally caught up to us. I couldn't be more proud of this team for giving 100 percent every single day in practice and 100 percent every day in our matches. We're obviously very disappointed that our season is over right now, but my hats are off to the players for playing as hard as could for as long as they could. They represented UT tremendously not only this season but in this match."
(on when they started preparing for Ohio State and UT's defensive execution)
"We started on Monday when we got tape. We obviously broke down Duke first and watched that. I watched the tape that we could get on Ohio State early in the week and they did what we thought they were going to do. With the type of players they had, they really couldn't do much more than what they did. The gameplan was there defensively. I thought we did a pretty good job of that. We held them to basically a .200 hitting percentage (.207), which is below their average. We had 20 blocks, which means we put our blocks in the right spot. Defensively, I thought our team did a wonderful job of carrying out the gameplan."
(on UT's offensive execution)
"Offensively, we needed to change some things that we did. For some reason uncharacteristic of our team, we really didn't do as good of a job as we have been all year of hitting our spots offensively. We really didn't do a good job of that. I thought we passed well enough to be more successful than we were offensively against Ohio State. I thought Mary (Pollmiller) did a pretty good job of setting the right hitters at the right times, setting with the right tempo and those type of things. Our hitters weren't able to put the ball really where we needed to. They were taking good swings. That's the thing I was really happy with. We were aggressive. That's one thing I'll always be happy (about).
"They were taking good, aggressive swings, but we really weren't hitting the spots that we needed to defensively as consistently as we wanted to. I don't know why. It's a big match. They wanted to do well, obviously. I think they wanted to try and hit the spots that we had set up for them. It just didn't happen today. It's amazing because we've played 32 matches this year and this was one of the one or two matches in the year that we didn't do that, something we're really good at. This is one of the matches we weren't able to do that and pull that off. Because of the way Ohio State played a little cleaner than we did, they were able to take advantage of that a little bit."
(on battling adversity)
"I think there were a couple things. I thought we were a little tight. I really did. In both matches, yesterday's and today's, we weren't as loose as we normally were. I think they put some pressure on themselves. I really tried to keep that off of them. That was a little bit of the youth, wanting to try a little bit too hard to accomplish their goals.
"The second thing was - and it was nothing we could do (anything) about - we have 18-year olds playing 22-year olds. (We have) 18-year olds that have never been through our weight program. They've never been through a spring of us really training their technique. Our conditioning, which was good, our strength staff does a wonderful job, but there's only so much you can do with freshmen when they come in. Instead of using all their energy to get stronger and more conditioned, we're using all of their energy to work on our offensive and defensive schemes and their skills.
"And then being short people, not having Kayla Jeter, not having Stephanie Stoll and not having another setter really for a while during the season. That takes its toll because the other players then have to take the reps to get better. All of a sudden at the end of the year, we're not able to get enough reps to continue to practice at the level we need to so that we play well in matches. I had to rest their legs. We just had to rest the freshmen's legs. It finally caught up today. We were making the right moves, we made the right reads and we were half-a-step away from the ball. I knew that and there was nothing we could do. Instead of us getting that ball up in the air, somebody be able to get their feet there and set the ball, we kind of took the step, it would go off the end of our arm and we couldn't do anything with it. Then we're bump-setting in and we're just trying to get it over. The heart was there. The effort was there. The legs just wouldn't allow it to happen."
(on the experience the freshman class got this year)
"It's not just this match, but this whole season was encouraging. To be honest with you, Shealyn Kolosky was not supposed to start for us this year. We recruited Shealyn Kolosky to start her junior year. Because of injuries and some different things, she started for us all year long. I think she maybe missed two sets out of the entire year. Here we have a young lady who wasn't supposed to start for maybe two years - or we didn't envision that - and (look at) how much experience and reps she got in practice and the matches themselves.
"Mary was supposed to be running a 6-2 and now she ran a 5-1 for a whole year. She touched the ball probably 800 more times than she would have in matches if we ran a 6-2. That's very encouraging to go into next year to have that type of experience under their belts. We're excited about that."
(on the benefit of this season towards the future)
"It's not just the strength and conditioning where they're going to be stronger, but it's us teaching them the techniques and stuff. We're sitting there and we have kids come in. We can't start working with them until August 8, 9, 10th or whatever time we start and then we're playing two-and-a-half weeks later. There isn't a lot of time for us to work on their techniques. Now, we do and they got better obviously. Again, it's not just that they're going to get stronger, but they're going to get better as volleyball players. That's something that I think we do really well here at the University of Tennessee is training our players. We had our offensive system in but it was very basic to be honest with you. Our offensive system was basic this year because we had a freshman setting it and you have freshman like Shealyn Kolosky hitting it and Tiffany Baker. We spent half-a-season with just Tiffany getting used to our tempo. Shealyn Kolosky is a player we knew would be a heck of a player for us, but she needed some work on things. When she played in club, they didn't use her very much offensively. We had to work with her on running slides, running our offense and that type of stuff.
"To get them in the off-season and to be able to add to what they have already learned is very exciting. It's very encouraging. Right now, obviously they're not going to see the benefits of what we're going to do."
TENNESSEE JUNIOR DeeDee Harrison
(on Ohio State's preparation)
"They were kind of everywhere that we hit. They knew who we were going to scout. They scouted out very well so hats off to them for a great gameplan. The disappointment comes from us not recognizing that early enough and doing something else. Hats off to them. They had a great gameplan, it followed through and it worked."
TENNESSEE SOPHOMORE Kelsey Robinson
(on what Tennessee will take from losing in the second round)
"Obviously, the first thought is disappointment. But having that pit feeling, that disappointment and knowing it is over drives you for next year. You don't ever forget that. It starts right away in January when we come back. That feeling is going to be there. We're all coming back so you can expect next year to be a great year."
OHIO STATE HEAD COACH GEOFF CARLSTON
(opening remarks)
"First of all, what a great match. You look at it; every game was two three points, basically, and it was two teams that were fighting and battling. I want to congratulate Tennessee. I know their coaching staff well, and they're great and awesome, and that team is going to be really, really good. We're very fortunate and proud to compete with them and be able to beat them.
"We knew coming into it they didn't have a lot of holes, and they didn't. We had to play really, really well to be in this match, so I'm excited for our players and for our seniors. We just really appreciate everything. Tennessee has been awesome. They've been an incredible host for us. Everywhere we've turned, people have been really, really friendly, and that's made this something our players are going to remember forever, so I want to thank the University for putting on a really great show."
(on OSU's game plan for defending Tennessee)
"We knew that if they were going off last night's game, that we knew it would be very different tonight. That was sort of our battle cry. We knew we were going to put Emily Danks in the back row, because we knew that in our system they really like to release to the outsides and we knew we weren't going to do very well in that scenario. We brought in and kept Emily Danks in the back row, which we haven't done for about five weeks, and she played all around the back row and did a nice job and created problems or at least something for them to think about on the back row. I think that helped us, especially when a match is this tight. When it's this close, just anything we could get, in terms of advantage, we knew we had to do, because they hadn't lost for two months.
"We really tried to establish the middle 10 feet of the court to open up our pins, because we knew they are a strong blocking team. They had 20 blocks, and we had 16, but we knew at some point they'd double us up. We made some adjustments and did some good stuff blocking-wise in games four and five to make these blocking stats closer, but they were really doing a better job blocking than we were for the most part in the match."
(on his team's losing record in the Big Ten and how the regular season prepared OSU)
"It's really hard to describe unless you are in it. We're happy to be 9-11. We were kicking and scratching and clawing and biting for that. We played seven teams this year that were ranked No. 1 at one point, and that's a quarter of our matches. The Big Ten absolutely prepares us for this. We knew that we had gone through a lot of storms, and this type of environment wasn't really anything new. We used that last night, I thought, for Middle Tennessee State. It wasn't a great match, but you go through the rigors of a Big Ten season, and you're going to grow. It absolutely helps us, and I am proud that after finishing seventh in the Big Ten to be able to come in here and make the Sweet Sixteen. Same thing last year. Six of our teams made the Sweet Sixteen last year. It's a great conference. Obviously the SEC is; especially Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida are legit. They're really, really awesome teams. We're very excited to have been able to get out of here and go on to Gainesville."
OHIO STATE JUNIOR RIGHTSIDE/OUTSIDE HITTER EMILY DANKS
(on the atmosphere for tonight's match)
"We knew that Tennessee having their home court they would bring great fans, and they did. We just knew we had to create our own energy, just get excited for our points and bring it in the middle after every point."
(on whether playing in lot of big matches this season helped them tonight)
"We know that in the Big Ten, and especially in the NCAA Tournament, every team is tough and every team is competitive. The environments are not necessarily friendly, so I think that helped us throughout the year prepare for playing Tennessee here."
OHIO STATE SENIOR MIDDLE BLOCKER KELLI BARHORST
(on the second set)
"I think we just kind of lost our focus there during a rotation, but it's something that we have been working on, and I think we fought our way back, especially coming back from that third and fourth game."
