Quotes Following Volleyball's 3-0 Win Over Tulsa
Nov 9, 2008 | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 9, 2008
TULANE HEAD COACH Liz Kritza
On clinching a share of the Conference USA title
"While I am extremely excited for this squad and the season we are putting together thus far, this news is a milestone for the Tulane University volleyball program. When I took over as head coach back in 2005, this is where I truly believed the Green Wave volleyball program should be - at the top of the conference and the region, and garnering national attention. I am proud that this group of players and coaches has shared that same expectations and most importantly they know that we have a lot of work to do to continue to achieve our common goals."
On what the Green Wave have to do from here
"I will be first to caution everyone to not look too much into this and stay focused on the reasons why we are able to share in this honor with two matches still remaining in the season, our continual improvement. This season is just now getting to the most critical part leading up to postseason play and we are looking at this as just the beginning, rather than the finale. We have two very important conference matches coming up next week and then the crucial Conference USA Tournament, to earn another milestone, our first NCAA tournament appearance."
Overall thoughts on the match
"This was a hard-earned victory and a hard earned sweep at that. Tulsa is a very good team. They are better than their record shows. They battled some injuries early on and when we played them earlier in the season at their place, one of their better players (Beth Hodge) was not playing. She played tonight and it made a clear different to their team and the level of volleyball that they could plan. We expected them to come in and put forth a much stronger performance than when we played them at their place. They pushed us to the limit today and we really did not get very many easy points today.
"To be able to come away with a win in three sets while going through some tougher periods of play during the match is exactly what we want at this phase of the season. We want to stay focused on continual improvement and getting ready for the conference tournament, and hopefully postseason play. Right now, you want to be playing teams that help your team improve in certain areas, and Tulsa is certainly one of them. They are well coached. They have a good set of overall skills and I think they put forth a good performance."
On hitting .348 for the match
"When we were in system and had all of our weapons firing, then we were able to score at the proper percentage. In siding out, we were a little low today and I have to give credit to them for picking apart our serve-receive a little bit and playing good defense against our strongest offensive weapon. Overall, hitting .348 as a team is a good sign. We had three players with double-digit kills and individual offensive performances were pretty good. This team is continually working on being more defensive minded, and that was the difference today. When we started blocking properly and playing better floor defense, that is when we were able to put runs of points together and eventually found our success."
On how close the match was, despite the 3-0 score
"Every single one of the sets that we won - even the first, despite the point differential - were not easy by any means. This was our third match this week and we had to battle some fatigue both physically and mentally. To have Tulsa as our third opponent in this really tough week for us, I think the box score does not do this match justice. If you were here to watch it, you would see that there was a high level of volleyball being played on both sides - both offensively and defensively. There are good players who can bang on both sides of the net. The team that could play better defense and commit fewer errors would come out on top.
On what Tulane did to try and keep Tulsa at bay
"One thing that we did was risking our serves because they have good middles who can score at a high clip. We had to risk the level of our serving and as a result, we had way too many serving errors. In that third set, we had five serving errors that nearly swung the momentum in their direction. That made it that much harder for us to get into a rhythm and allow our offense to play the way it can."
On senior outside hitter Sara Radosevic overcoming a slow start to post 11 kills
"Sara struggled in the first set. I have to give credit to Sinisa (Momic) for pulling Luna aside and saying, `look, you have got to get Sara going.' That is what a setter has to do. It is not just running the offense, but helping all the individual perform better. She made a concerted effort to get her more balls to get her going, and our offense improved greatly because of it. It was a good coaching call by Sinisa and good execution by Luna on that part. If Sara is going to be an integral part of our offense, she cannot be the only offensive weapon because we have plenty of them. That is the strength of our system and it allows us to be competitive, even when other teams are putting forth pretty strong performances like Tulsa did. We had to play back to our system with everybody pulling their weight."
On the performance of right-side hitters Ksenija Vlaskovic and Bridget Wells
"Ksenija and Bridget's performance on the right side was the difference in today's match, offensively. They carried their load effectively. They were hitting at a high percentage. During the match, you could see that Ksenija was the one scoring big points for us. She was 8-for-10 at one point and (Tulsa) started keying for her. They often times have a one-on-one or a split block because of the way our offense runs, and it is their job to score on those. They (the right-side hitters) embrace their roles and because they do, our system fires more effectively. Credit to them because they both came out and played pretty well offensively today."
TULSA HEAD COACH ED ALLEN
Overall thoughts on the match
"Tulane is a very good team. Offensively, they are extremely balanced across the net. If one kid is struggling or if we try to take something away, they have other kids who are able to execute. I thought they were extremely efficient in their side-out offense - somewhere between 60 and 70 percent in all three games. That allows them to develop momentum and continue to apply pressure to us. I thought there were a couple of mental mistakes that we made at critical times in sets two and three when both of them were in reach. We could have performed just a little bit better, but that is a talented team."
On the difference between the way Tulsa played in the first set as opposed to the last two
"Obviously, we eliminated some of the errors that we had in set one. I also think we did a better job of ball control in sets two and three. Jen Eichler has done a great job all year long of carrying a significant load of our offense. We tried to mix things up, spread the floor and run the middle a little bit which allowed that spread to take place and give her a little better seam to work with out of it. For the most part, she was pretty effective."
On just how close today's match was
"In sets two and three, both teams were tied at 20 with five points to push out so the match could have gone either way. We just didn't play smart in some areas. We had one swing out of the back row instead of cutting the ball back. We hit at the libero, who is a great ball-control kid for Tulane who allows them to stay in system and do whatever they want with the ball. There were just tiny little things that I think would have made a significant difference in a game as tight as this one was."
