A look inside Gregory Gymnasium
Photo by: Joe Willman
Volleyball Meets Media; Then Practices; In First Full Day in Austin
12/8/2016 8:51:00 PM | Volleyball
Bluejays making final preparations for Friday's match-up vs. No. 17 Michigan
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Creighton Volleyball team met the media and practiced at Gregory Gymnasium during its first full day in Texas at the Austin Regional.
No. 21 Creighton meets No. 17 Michigan on Friday at 5:30 pm Central in a Regional semifinal in Austin. The contest can be seen on ESPN3.
Below are press conference transcripts from all four teams that met the media on Thursday.
COACH BERNTHAL BOOTH: Well, we're really excited to be here. I think it's everyone's first time to play -- no, Lydia's played here, but no one else on our team has played here or coached here. I think you've got to say Texas has the edge being on their home court.
But I think the exciting thing about this regional is any of the four of us feel like we can come out of it. I think obviously we have great respect and watch tons of film on Michigan and know we're going to be in for a battle. And we know BYU and Texas are two great teams. So we're looking forward to four great volleyball teams battling it out and for an opportunity to move on.
Q. What are you expecting from Michigan?
LYDIA DIMKE: I think like any team at this point, we're expecting them to come out and they're going to be ready to go. I think we can watch a lot of film and we can prepare, but it's all going to change when they get on the court. They're fighting for the same spot we are, so at this point everyone's going to come out and play their best volleyball. So we have to expect the "A" game from Michigan tomorrow.
Q. Can you talk about your winning streak?
JAALI WINTERS: Yeah, we've obviously had a lot of success this season, and we just want to keep continuing our streak, and we just want to keep playing together, honestly. We have a great team, we love being together, so just getting one more week to play with everybody would be great.
Q. What will it be like for you playing Texas in Gregory Gym?
JAALI WINTERS: Are we excited to match up with Texas? Yeah, I haven't even seen the gym yet, so I'm excited to see it. We've only been in the locker room thus far, so it's exciting to be in this arena.
LYDIA DIMKE: I think it's a little bitter sweet for me, since I played here last year, they ended our season. And I don't want that to happen again, so I'm excited to be back to change that destiny.
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COACH ROSEN: First of all, we're happy to be here, happy to still be playing. Happy to be here, but not satisfied to be here. So I'm excited about the weekend and great tournament as far as the teams that are here. Everyone's earned their way here, so it's always fun when you're playing in that kind of atmosphere.
Creighton, our first opponent, if we're lucky enough to have a second one, is a really good team. We're excited about playing them as we started to scout and watch them, they do some really good things, and it should be a really good match. So excited about that.
One thing I want to hit on is these guys, having our three seniors here, two fifth-years and a fourth-year senior, these guys have done a great job all year long. Our leadership has been outstanding and that's why we're here right now.
Q. This is your first Sweet Sixteen since 2012, that was the same year you advanced to the Final Four. Does that give this team any incentive in this tournament?
KELLY MURPHY: I think we definitely want to make it to the National Championship this year and we didn't do that in 2012, so we're looking at just advancing further than we did back then.
ALLY DAVIS: Yeah, this is the farthest a lot of the girls have gone, a lot of the girls on the team. So just making it as far as we can, and like Kelly said, getting to the National Championship is the goal.
Q. The weather is supposed to be unseasonably cold in Austin at the moment, so do you think that's helped you guys settle in a little bit? And it's supposed to be 70 on Sunday. Coming from Ann Arbor, I think it's supposed to be 25 or less?
ALLY DAVIS: It's snowing there right now.
COACH ROSEN: The cold weather is advantage Michigan.
KELLY MURPHY: We purposely all left our winter puffer jackets at home.
Q. Can you go down the row with your seniors and what they bring to the table?
COACH ROSEN: I think one of the great things is when you talk about leadership as a coach, and we spent a lot of time thinking about leadership, it's amazing how that works. One of the things I like about this group, and we knew this early on when they were emerging as the leaders for this group was how different they are in their styles and how different they are in what they bring to the table.
Kelly's a fifth-year senior. She was on that team in 2012 that went to the national semifinals, so she's got a lot of experience that way. She's kind of, I think you use the word the enforcer on the team a little bit. But she's someone who is very serious, and does a good job taking care of a lot of the details.
I actually had these guys write up a job description of what they bring and what each person is going to fill. And Kelly is fun. She's not a non-fun person, but she's very competitive and doesn't mind saying what she thinks needs to happen for us to be successful on a given day. So I think she brings a really strong leadership in that area.
I think Ally is another fifth-year senior -- they're all worried about what I'm going to say now. Isn't that funny?
Ally was a fifth-year senior who was on that team in 2012. And Ally's one of the people that I found in our program that relates unbelievably well with anybody she's dealing with it. Whether it's a young freshman, whether it's a classmate, whether it's a peer, whether it's somebody that's outside of our program, she relates incredibly well to people. So as a relater in our captain's trio here, I think she's the one that does a good job of that. And I think our freshmen benefited greatly from her because she's so good at taking them under her wing and helping with that process because of her relatability. And she can relate on so many different levels as a key player, as a starter, somebody who is not starting.
If you watch the energy on our bench, we get warned all the time by referees and usually it's her that's leading that charge, and I'm so proud of that. I tell her, don't worry about getting warned all we want. I just want you guys enthusiastic, and she brings a ton of energy and relates really well.
I think Abby is a really unique captain. As I said, she leads by example, she works hard every day. She's very physical. She makes a big impact. The thing that makes it such a good leadership role for her is she's incredibly humble. She never makes it about herself. She never makes it, even though a lot of other people make it about her, she's always deflecting that and always taking a very humble road, which I think is a great quality as a leader and you're an impactful player. All of them have meant so much to our program, and I kind of get reflective and sad when I think about no matter what there are only four more matches left, at the most. That stinks because I love having these guys in our program, and I'm certainly going to miss them when they're not.
Q. How do you handle the offense with three middles?
COACH ROSEN: We actually did early in the year, and then we went away from it for a good month and a half, probably. And then just in the last three or four weeks kind of went back to it maybe a little longer than that. It's been evolutionary in that process. Early on we wanted to be more physical, we wanted to be more of a blocking lineup that we could be a little more effective as the blocking team. But offensively I don't think we were -- it wasn't connecting. We weren't getting the offense out of it. So it was putting a lot of pressure on a couple of positions because we were so unbalanced offensively.
So we actually went to more of a traditional system where we had Katherine Mahlke our lefty right side who could score like crazy. She can get a lot of kills and we all of a sudden became more offensive. But we gave up a little bit of the blocking on the defensive side. And then Cori Crocker, the freshman middle, she's the one that really made that change happen, because in practice you could see her developing offensively, and there's about a three-, four-week period of time where offensively she was really hard to stop in practice, but not getting opportunities in games, and our blocking was problematic a little bit.
So we went to that to get more blocking focus, and yet we still got some offense, because she was kind of maturing and growing as a player. So I think Cori's development allowed that to really happen and allowed us to be a lot bigger. I think blocking-wise, we're pretty effective blocking-wise, and that made a big impact.
Q. How do you see MacKenzi Welsh as a freshman setter?
ABBY COLE: I don't think of her as a freshman setter any more. She's very experienced as far as I'm concerned right now, and she's done a great job throughout the season. Worked her butt off to get better every single day and worked the tempo. Has started really understanding like what each hitter needs for their set and now she's just setting great balls.
ALLY DAVIS: And she's really outgoing, so she came in right away and wasn't shy, which us you usually can see from freshmen sometimes. So she hit her stride really soon.
KELLY MURPHY: That's a really big role for our freshmen to come in and fill, and she did a great job with that. She didn't ever seem nervous. Her confidence certainly didn't waiver much. So, I don't know. I think that she's improved a lot throughout the season, and like Kelly said, her experienced isn't really questioned by us.
Q. How do you go from a 6-2 to a 5-1?
COACH ROSEN: Yeah, last year we had to do that a little bit out of necessity. We had a setter that took a career-ending medical, so it kind of forced us into a situation where we had two smaller setters that we didn't feel like could compete as well with one in the front row. So we were in and out of the 5-2 last year a lot.
This year we started with the 6-2, mainly to bring Mac along a little slower. On the other side of it, Maddy Abbott who set for us last year, she really did a great job. She did a great job last year, and a great job all spring, and she did a great job preseason. So we wanted to let that play out instead of us making this decision early on based on what we thought might happen. We wanted to let it happen.
So running the 6-2 helped us and also gives us a chance to develop other hitters and other offensive options. So I think, again, it was very evolutionary where we were going through it and we were realizing, hey, we're a little more consistent in these situations. We also wanted to go with the three-middle system, and that was, again, in probably September. I think it was after the Pitt match. Then that kind of precipitated us going into a 5-1 to be able to run that.
But I think Mac was just ready, but I don't know if she was right off the bat, but we didn't want to really force that issue.
Q. What are the keys for Michigan to play well?
COACH ROSEN: Why don't you guys answer that.
ALLY DAVIS: We're definitely relaxed and having fun. When everyone's enjoying it, these things go much smoother on offense, and we're making a lot more digs and a lot more blocks. That's what I would say.
KELLY MURPHY: I would add aggressive, and fun. We're in rhythm. Our bench gets really into it which is awesome. You can feel the energy one through 19 deep on our team when we're playing well.
ABBY COLE: And when we're having fun and we're playing free, like they were saying, aggressive, our attackers are going after kills. You're not really holding yourself back at all.
COACH ROSEN: One of the things I like about this team is I think they're very authentic. I think this team, they know what their strengths are, they know what their weaknesses are. They don't hide from either one of them. We went through a stretch the last five matches of the season we played our rival in Michigan State that was ranked 11 or 12 the at the time. We played number one, number two, and number three, and we played Michigan State again in that run. So those five games. We went 1-4. And these guys may be shocked to hear that, 1 in 4. At no point did you see our team look concerned or dejected or frustrated or lack confidence. They're very good evaluating what are we doing right now, and are we doing it well or not? Not what the score is or what the outcome is. Those are things we can't control. I think the things that we can control, this team is really good about keeping that as a priority. I just really like that about them. I think it tells me they're authentic. They know who they are, they know what they're about. Kelly is a great example. Kelly's not going to tell you she's going to jump over the top of people and be the most physical kid in the gym, but she's a heck of a volleyball player and she'll find a way to beat you. She plays to restraints ^ , and I think our whole team does that well.
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Coach, your thoughts on getting started here in the Austin Regional?
COACH OLMSTEAD: We're excited to be here. Grateful for the University of Texas being such gracious hosts and the city of Austin. And we're looking forward to practice later today and our match tomorrow against Texas.
Q. How excited are you guys to be here?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, we're looking forward to the challenge. It's a great opportunity to play a good volleyball team. We're excited about the match-up tomorrow. We think we have some strengths, they have some strengths as well, so we're looking forward to playing some good volleyball heading into the match tomorrow.
It's exciting to be here. I know Texas is an historically great program. They've done great things. Jerritt does a great job with his team, so I know they're going to be well-coached, and we're well prepared.
AMY BOSWELL: I know I'm super excited just the opportunity to be here. We have had a fantastic season so far, and are excited to see what we can do. And our coaches have done a really good job at preparing us, and we'll prepare as a team as well. Obviously, Texas is a fantastic team, and we're excited for the opportunity to get better.
WHITNEY YOUNG HOWARD: Yeah, I'm excited for the chance to work hard together with my teammates. So it's always fun.
MARY LAKE: I love that we treat every team like any other team, and so just focusing on ourselves and that's something that our team does, and I'm just excited to play Texas.
Q. When you think about Texas?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, I think Texas does quite a few things well. They're a big, physical team. I think their offense is run really well by their setter, and so that can Pose some problems, but defensively, I think we can also Pose a problem for their offense. Just getting our offense going against their defense is another challenge we're going to look at, but I think we match-up well with them. We're big and physical also, so I think we play similar styles of volleyball.
Q. What do you remember of the BYU upset over Texas?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, we've got some seniors, Amy and Whitney that were both on that team. Just remember the excitement of playing Texas in the Final Four, of playing an historically good program. Jerritt does a very good job with his team, so we're excited for that opportunity. We've got new kids, obviously, and so does Texas, so it will be a completely different match. But we're looking forward to playing a high level of volleyball.
Q. And can you comment, Amy?
AMY BOSWELL: Honestly, I was really excited hearing that we were coming to Austin and playing Texas. There are a lot of really fun memories from that match, obviously. But just like Heather said, I was telling somebody else also, this is a completely different match, completely different team, but nonetheless, very exciting. So I'm excited to match up and maybe have some of those memories come back and hopefully play well.
MARY LAKE: I remember, I think I was a junior in high school when I watched that game. I was sitting around the couch with my family, so it's kind of crazy to think that I was there watching them play Texas, and I'm here excited to play them.
Q. What was a defining moment of this season?
COACH OLMSTEAD: I think for me as a coach, one of those moments was playing at Ohio State. We were down 0-2 and we really fought to stay in that match. We played together, stayed together, they played for each other, and we won that in five. Followed that up the next weekend when we went to Idaho State and played really well in a tournament in Pocatello, beat Missouri, beat Boise State and beat Idaho State. For me that was kind of the moment where I thought okay this team could do something pretty special, and they kept working hard from there, and as you can tell, they've had a fantastic season. So I couldn't be more proud of them.
Q. What would you say is the identity of your team?
WHITNEY YOUNG HOWARD: I just think our identity like everybody works hard as a whole team. So we never have -- like we have our starters, and then we have our people that are constantly ready, they're always ready to go in, and when they do go in, they play well. So I'd say our identity of the team is the fact that it's our whole team that is going out.
AMY BOSWELL: I'd add we're a team that doesn't give up or never goes away. As Heather said to that Ohio State match, there are a couple of times that we've done that. We've just been down and kind of had that break at halftime. It's like, guys, we are not finished. This is not how we want to end this game.
So just knowing that the strength of our team is our team, and that anybody can come in and we are very comfortable with each other, but just the fact that we work hard. And if you think you've got us, check again.
Q. (Inaudible)?
WHITNEY YOUNG HOWARD: It's definitely hard. Like as a middle, if your game's not working well or if the other team is serving really hard and we're not doing as well passing, it's hard to kind of take that role because, like for me, I just take it upon myself to be a better blocker. Like what can I do to get my team a touch so that we can get a good dig?
AMY BOSWELL: Yeah, I think what's fantastic about this team also is it's not just our four seniors that are the leaders. We have fantastic freshmen who come in, and we've got a really good leaders in our coaches and on the players on this team. So maybe the seniors will take a moment and say something at a crucial time and calm us down, but the leadership comes from all 18, 19 of us.
Q. Can you kind of go down what you worked on in preseason to get where they are?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, sure. Amy has been obviously here for five years, a fifth-year senior, so for her, it's constantly working on her blocking, just getting over the net where she is and fine tuning her offense. She's always been a good offensive player. She has a good arm, but just seeing the block and continuing to see the block throughout her career, and I think she's done a fantastic job of that this year, just seeing the block, hitting around and being able to get kills better. But always blocking and offense with Amy.
Same thing with Whit. Whit's a little more has a knack for blocking as far as getting over, and she's quick left to right. So for her, offensively, figuring out ways for her to get more kills and she's done that this year. She's doing a great job for us being more involved in the offense, and people have to respect Whitney when she's on the front row.
Then Mary, as far as being a libero, passing and defensively she's been able to catch up to the level of play pretty quickly from the first match we played she's been our starting libero as a freshman. So she's really, I think, embraced that role, and she's a vocal leader and a leader on the court as well. She's going to go for every ball, and that inspires our team to be scrappy.
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Coach, if you want to start with your thoughts on the regional?
COACH ELLIOTT: Yeah, we're obviously excited and feel honored to be part of this regional. It's a very strong regional with Michigan, Creighton and BYU. We're fortunate to be playing this at home in front of our home crowd. And our team is playing some of the best volleyball it's played all season long, so we're going in with some confidence.
But as I told the team, you're going to be put in front of the fire a little bit more and there will be more pressure put on you, and we'll see how we handle that. But I like what our mentality is, I like the way our team is focused and the way they're giving each other confidence and playing as a unit right now. So we're excited.
We just need the city of Austin to come out and support us. It's a 3 o'clock game time, and that's the biggest thing we need to do is fill this gym.
Q. Coach, how will your team adjust to the early afternoon match time?
COACH ELLIOTT: We practice at 1:30 every day, so it's nothing that's different for us. We've played some preseason tournaments where we start earlier and TV matches where it's been earlier. So the timing for us is probably even better because we don't have to sit around and wait all day. The hardest thing to do is sit around and wait. So this earlier time, we'll be warming up at 10:15, that means they'll be there by 9:30. So the day gets flowing, and it's a nice routine for us to kind of get comfortable.
Q. How does it feel being in your first NCAA tournament?
MICAYA WHITE: It's exciting. I'm just trying to take it one match at a time.
Q. Ebony, what is the pressure to win?
EBONY NWANEBU: There is a little bit of pressure, mostly because of the name on our back, and people expect us to get to Final Four and advance every round, but it's important not to just assume that you're going to advance. So like Micaya said, we're just taking one game at a time, getting our job done one night, and doing it another night and just keep on trying to build on that until we get to our goal.
YAAZIE BEDART-GHANI: Oh, yeah, I definitely agree with Ebony. Of course, we are Texas. People say well, Texas should be in the Final Four. But I think we've just been focusing on ourselves and our side of the net and doing what we need to do to advance.
COACH ELLIOTT: For me, as a coach, I think since we lost to Iowa State there's been a completely different demeanor. I felt like we had a lot of pressure to succeed and be and win the Big 12. And since that loss, sometimes a loss can jump start you in different ways. We lost our last match in 2012 to Iowa State and won the National Championship.
So the way they're approaching this now is they're super aggressive. There is a different mentality. They're kind of being the ones going after the teams instead of waiting and feeling. So it's been a nice blend and it's been consistent over the last five matches.
So the pressure is more perceived than anything. Our goal is just to be able to take it one match at a time at BYU and that's what our girls are doing, but getting after it at the very first point.
Q. Ebony, what will this rematch with BYU mean to you?
EBONY NWANEBU: Yeah, most of the players that were in that semifinal are still on this team and seniors this year. So I think as a group we want to be able to have redemption for them and for this program. So tomorrow it's just important to show up, do what we can do best, and hopefully get redemption for that year.
Q. You guys have been to the postseason before. How does that experience help you today? How does that benefit you?
YAAZIE BEDART-GHANI: I think it give us a little chip on our shoulder just knowing that we've been here before and it's something that we can definitely do if we handle our business. So I think it gives us experience in this situation, and I think that helps a lot.
Q. Jerritt, do you have to guard against them trying too hard with the revenge factor?
COACH ELLIOTT: We haven't discussed it as a staff at all. It's two completely different teams. Our focus as a staff is just worrying about what we do as a team, and play Texas volleyball in the system that we have and be good at that. Those are more media hypes than anything else and good for the media, but our concern right now is just to play well against BYU and find a way to win that match. It's going to be a battle.
We've been here before. We've got confidence in being able to do that. We've got our home crowd, but there's no guarantee. It's our mentality of just how we prepare, how we stay relaxed and compete over a long period of time.
Q. What does BYU bring?
COACH ELLIOTT: They bring balance. They've got, obviously, a middle that was there when they beat us who is 6'4" and can kind of go over the blocks. They've got good pin hitting. They've got a very good libero. They have a freshman who was a WCC Freshman of the Year, and outside hitter that can score a lot of points.
So they've got a lot of different areas they can hit you with. So the serve-and-pass game will be a big part of it, and how we execute and control the ball will be a big part of it.
At this level, everyone's good. Every round you advance, there are more weapons that you have to deal with. It's exciting, it's fun, it's enjoyable for these guys. They want to be in that position. It's why they've worked all summer long to be here and be part of that. This started last January, and they know that. So it's more about just keeping them calm and relaxed and trusting what we are because our brand right now is really good and what we bring to the table. If we play that brand of our ball, that could bring a lot of success.
Q. Does it help playing here at home?
YAAZIE BEDART-GHANI: It's awesome playing at home again. I definitely think that playing Gregory is a special experience like every time we go out there. So having our fans and being nice and comfortable at home, it's really nice.
COACH ELLIOTT: I've given everybody permission to take the day off. There is a permission slip on our Twitter page at Texas volleyball if you needed to get off work or school.
Q. My question is for any of the players, how does this work between finals and school, do you find any time to kind of just step back and relax?
EBONY NWANEBU: Right after practice, Jerritt actually talked about it the other day, doing our studying early so that way at night we can sleep, and especially now since we have a game tomorrow. Like I have a final on Monday, but I've been studying all week for it, that way tonight I won't have to study for it, tomorrow I won't have to study for it, so I can just focus on it Saturday and Sunday. So I think that approach just takes stress off, just knowing when to do certain things.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
No. 21 Creighton meets No. 17 Michigan on Friday at 5:30 pm Central in a Regional semifinal in Austin. The contest can be seen on ESPN3.
Below are press conference transcripts from all four teams that met the media on Thursday.
Austin Regional NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Kirsten Bernthal Booth
Jaali Winters
Lydia Dimke
Creighton Bluejays
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We are here with Creighton. We have head coach Kirsten Bernthal Booth, junior setter, Lydia Dimke, and sophomore outside hitter Jaali Winters. We'll first have a statement from coach, and then we'll take questions.COACH BERNTHAL BOOTH: Well, we're really excited to be here. I think it's everyone's first time to play -- no, Lydia's played here, but no one else on our team has played here or coached here. I think you've got to say Texas has the edge being on their home court.
But I think the exciting thing about this regional is any of the four of us feel like we can come out of it. I think obviously we have great respect and watch tons of film on Michigan and know we're going to be in for a battle. And we know BYU and Texas are two great teams. So we're looking forward to four great volleyball teams battling it out and for an opportunity to move on.
Q. What are you expecting from Michigan?
LYDIA DIMKE: I think like any team at this point, we're expecting them to come out and they're going to be ready to go. I think we can watch a lot of film and we can prepare, but it's all going to change when they get on the court. They're fighting for the same spot we are, so at this point everyone's going to come out and play their best volleyball. So we have to expect the "A" game from Michigan tomorrow.
Q. Can you talk about your winning streak?
JAALI WINTERS: Yeah, we've obviously had a lot of success this season, and we just want to keep continuing our streak, and we just want to keep playing together, honestly. We have a great team, we love being together, so just getting one more week to play with everybody would be great.
Q. What will it be like for you playing Texas in Gregory Gym?
JAALI WINTERS: Are we excited to match up with Texas? Yeah, I haven't even seen the gym yet, so I'm excited to see it. We've only been in the locker room thus far, so it's exciting to be in this arena.
LYDIA DIMKE: I think it's a little bitter sweet for me, since I played here last year, they ended our season. And I don't want that to happen again, so I'm excited to be back to change that destiny.
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Austin Regional NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Mark Rosen
Kelly Murphy
Abby Cole
Ally Davis
Michigan Wolverines
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everybody. We are joined by Michigan now. We have Coach Mark Rosen, senior Kelly Murphy, senior Ally Davis, and senior Abby Cole. Coach, an open statement on your thoughts on this weekend's regional?COACH ROSEN: First of all, we're happy to be here, happy to still be playing. Happy to be here, but not satisfied to be here. So I'm excited about the weekend and great tournament as far as the teams that are here. Everyone's earned their way here, so it's always fun when you're playing in that kind of atmosphere.
Creighton, our first opponent, if we're lucky enough to have a second one, is a really good team. We're excited about playing them as we started to scout and watch them, they do some really good things, and it should be a really good match. So excited about that.
One thing I want to hit on is these guys, having our three seniors here, two fifth-years and a fourth-year senior, these guys have done a great job all year long. Our leadership has been outstanding and that's why we're here right now.
Q. This is your first Sweet Sixteen since 2012, that was the same year you advanced to the Final Four. Does that give this team any incentive in this tournament?
KELLY MURPHY: I think we definitely want to make it to the National Championship this year and we didn't do that in 2012, so we're looking at just advancing further than we did back then.
ALLY DAVIS: Yeah, this is the farthest a lot of the girls have gone, a lot of the girls on the team. So just making it as far as we can, and like Kelly said, getting to the National Championship is the goal.
Q. The weather is supposed to be unseasonably cold in Austin at the moment, so do you think that's helped you guys settle in a little bit? And it's supposed to be 70 on Sunday. Coming from Ann Arbor, I think it's supposed to be 25 or less?
ALLY DAVIS: It's snowing there right now.
COACH ROSEN: The cold weather is advantage Michigan.
KELLY MURPHY: We purposely all left our winter puffer jackets at home.
Q. Can you go down the row with your seniors and what they bring to the table?
COACH ROSEN: I think one of the great things is when you talk about leadership as a coach, and we spent a lot of time thinking about leadership, it's amazing how that works. One of the things I like about this group, and we knew this early on when they were emerging as the leaders for this group was how different they are in their styles and how different they are in what they bring to the table.
Kelly's a fifth-year senior. She was on that team in 2012 that went to the national semifinals, so she's got a lot of experience that way. She's kind of, I think you use the word the enforcer on the team a little bit. But she's someone who is very serious, and does a good job taking care of a lot of the details.
I actually had these guys write up a job description of what they bring and what each person is going to fill. And Kelly is fun. She's not a non-fun person, but she's very competitive and doesn't mind saying what she thinks needs to happen for us to be successful on a given day. So I think she brings a really strong leadership in that area.
I think Ally is another fifth-year senior -- they're all worried about what I'm going to say now. Isn't that funny?
Ally was a fifth-year senior who was on that team in 2012. And Ally's one of the people that I found in our program that relates unbelievably well with anybody she's dealing with it. Whether it's a young freshman, whether it's a classmate, whether it's a peer, whether it's somebody that's outside of our program, she relates incredibly well to people. So as a relater in our captain's trio here, I think she's the one that does a good job of that. And I think our freshmen benefited greatly from her because she's so good at taking them under her wing and helping with that process because of her relatability. And she can relate on so many different levels as a key player, as a starter, somebody who is not starting.
If you watch the energy on our bench, we get warned all the time by referees and usually it's her that's leading that charge, and I'm so proud of that. I tell her, don't worry about getting warned all we want. I just want you guys enthusiastic, and she brings a ton of energy and relates really well.
I think Abby is a really unique captain. As I said, she leads by example, she works hard every day. She's very physical. She makes a big impact. The thing that makes it such a good leadership role for her is she's incredibly humble. She never makes it about herself. She never makes it, even though a lot of other people make it about her, she's always deflecting that and always taking a very humble road, which I think is a great quality as a leader and you're an impactful player. All of them have meant so much to our program, and I kind of get reflective and sad when I think about no matter what there are only four more matches left, at the most. That stinks because I love having these guys in our program, and I'm certainly going to miss them when they're not.
Q. How do you handle the offense with three middles?
COACH ROSEN: We actually did early in the year, and then we went away from it for a good month and a half, probably. And then just in the last three or four weeks kind of went back to it maybe a little longer than that. It's been evolutionary in that process. Early on we wanted to be more physical, we wanted to be more of a blocking lineup that we could be a little more effective as the blocking team. But offensively I don't think we were -- it wasn't connecting. We weren't getting the offense out of it. So it was putting a lot of pressure on a couple of positions because we were so unbalanced offensively.
So we actually went to more of a traditional system where we had Katherine Mahlke our lefty right side who could score like crazy. She can get a lot of kills and we all of a sudden became more offensive. But we gave up a little bit of the blocking on the defensive side. And then Cori Crocker, the freshman middle, she's the one that really made that change happen, because in practice you could see her developing offensively, and there's about a three-, four-week period of time where offensively she was really hard to stop in practice, but not getting opportunities in games, and our blocking was problematic a little bit.
So we went to that to get more blocking focus, and yet we still got some offense, because she was kind of maturing and growing as a player. So I think Cori's development allowed that to really happen and allowed us to be a lot bigger. I think blocking-wise, we're pretty effective blocking-wise, and that made a big impact.
Q. How do you see MacKenzi Welsh as a freshman setter?
ABBY COLE: I don't think of her as a freshman setter any more. She's very experienced as far as I'm concerned right now, and she's done a great job throughout the season. Worked her butt off to get better every single day and worked the tempo. Has started really understanding like what each hitter needs for their set and now she's just setting great balls.
ALLY DAVIS: And she's really outgoing, so she came in right away and wasn't shy, which us you usually can see from freshmen sometimes. So she hit her stride really soon.
KELLY MURPHY: That's a really big role for our freshmen to come in and fill, and she did a great job with that. She didn't ever seem nervous. Her confidence certainly didn't waiver much. So, I don't know. I think that she's improved a lot throughout the season, and like Kelly said, her experienced isn't really questioned by us.
Q. How do you go from a 6-2 to a 5-1?
COACH ROSEN: Yeah, last year we had to do that a little bit out of necessity. We had a setter that took a career-ending medical, so it kind of forced us into a situation where we had two smaller setters that we didn't feel like could compete as well with one in the front row. So we were in and out of the 5-2 last year a lot.
This year we started with the 6-2, mainly to bring Mac along a little slower. On the other side of it, Maddy Abbott who set for us last year, she really did a great job. She did a great job last year, and a great job all spring, and she did a great job preseason. So we wanted to let that play out instead of us making this decision early on based on what we thought might happen. We wanted to let it happen.
So running the 6-2 helped us and also gives us a chance to develop other hitters and other offensive options. So I think, again, it was very evolutionary where we were going through it and we were realizing, hey, we're a little more consistent in these situations. We also wanted to go with the three-middle system, and that was, again, in probably September. I think it was after the Pitt match. Then that kind of precipitated us going into a 5-1 to be able to run that.
But I think Mac was just ready, but I don't know if she was right off the bat, but we didn't want to really force that issue.
Q. What are the keys for Michigan to play well?
COACH ROSEN: Why don't you guys answer that.
ALLY DAVIS: We're definitely relaxed and having fun. When everyone's enjoying it, these things go much smoother on offense, and we're making a lot more digs and a lot more blocks. That's what I would say.
KELLY MURPHY: I would add aggressive, and fun. We're in rhythm. Our bench gets really into it which is awesome. You can feel the energy one through 19 deep on our team when we're playing well.
ABBY COLE: And when we're having fun and we're playing free, like they were saying, aggressive, our attackers are going after kills. You're not really holding yourself back at all.
COACH ROSEN: One of the things I like about this team is I think they're very authentic. I think this team, they know what their strengths are, they know what their weaknesses are. They don't hide from either one of them. We went through a stretch the last five matches of the season we played our rival in Michigan State that was ranked 11 or 12 the at the time. We played number one, number two, and number three, and we played Michigan State again in that run. So those five games. We went 1-4. And these guys may be shocked to hear that, 1 in 4. At no point did you see our team look concerned or dejected or frustrated or lack confidence. They're very good evaluating what are we doing right now, and are we doing it well or not? Not what the score is or what the outcome is. Those are things we can't control. I think the things that we can control, this team is really good about keeping that as a priority. I just really like that about them. I think it tells me they're authentic. They know who they are, they know what they're about. Kelly is a great example. Kelly's not going to tell you she's going to jump over the top of people and be the most physical kid in the gym, but she's a heck of a volleyball player and she'll find a way to beat you. She plays to restraints ^ , and I think our whole team does that well.
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Austin Regional NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Heather Olmstead
Amy Boswell
Mary Lake
Whitney Young Howard
BYU Cougars
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We'll begin with BYU this afternoon. We're joined by head coach Heather Olmstead, senior middle blocker, Amy Boswell, senior middle blocker, Whitney Young Howard, and freshman libero, Mary Lake. We'll have an opening statement from coach, and then we'll take questions for coach and the student-athletes.Coach, your thoughts on getting started here in the Austin Regional?
COACH OLMSTEAD: We're excited to be here. Grateful for the University of Texas being such gracious hosts and the city of Austin. And we're looking forward to practice later today and our match tomorrow against Texas.
Q. How excited are you guys to be here?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, we're looking forward to the challenge. It's a great opportunity to play a good volleyball team. We're excited about the match-up tomorrow. We think we have some strengths, they have some strengths as well, so we're looking forward to playing some good volleyball heading into the match tomorrow.
It's exciting to be here. I know Texas is an historically great program. They've done great things. Jerritt does a great job with his team, so I know they're going to be well-coached, and we're well prepared.
AMY BOSWELL: I know I'm super excited just the opportunity to be here. We have had a fantastic season so far, and are excited to see what we can do. And our coaches have done a really good job at preparing us, and we'll prepare as a team as well. Obviously, Texas is a fantastic team, and we're excited for the opportunity to get better.
WHITNEY YOUNG HOWARD: Yeah, I'm excited for the chance to work hard together with my teammates. So it's always fun.
MARY LAKE: I love that we treat every team like any other team, and so just focusing on ourselves and that's something that our team does, and I'm just excited to play Texas.
Q. When you think about Texas?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, I think Texas does quite a few things well. They're a big, physical team. I think their offense is run really well by their setter, and so that can Pose some problems, but defensively, I think we can also Pose a problem for their offense. Just getting our offense going against their defense is another challenge we're going to look at, but I think we match-up well with them. We're big and physical also, so I think we play similar styles of volleyball.
Q. What do you remember of the BYU upset over Texas?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, we've got some seniors, Amy and Whitney that were both on that team. Just remember the excitement of playing Texas in the Final Four, of playing an historically good program. Jerritt does a very good job with his team, so we're excited for that opportunity. We've got new kids, obviously, and so does Texas, so it will be a completely different match. But we're looking forward to playing a high level of volleyball.
Q. And can you comment, Amy?
AMY BOSWELL: Honestly, I was really excited hearing that we were coming to Austin and playing Texas. There are a lot of really fun memories from that match, obviously. But just like Heather said, I was telling somebody else also, this is a completely different match, completely different team, but nonetheless, very exciting. So I'm excited to match up and maybe have some of those memories come back and hopefully play well.
MARY LAKE: I remember, I think I was a junior in high school when I watched that game. I was sitting around the couch with my family, so it's kind of crazy to think that I was there watching them play Texas, and I'm here excited to play them.
Q. What was a defining moment of this season?
COACH OLMSTEAD: I think for me as a coach, one of those moments was playing at Ohio State. We were down 0-2 and we really fought to stay in that match. We played together, stayed together, they played for each other, and we won that in five. Followed that up the next weekend when we went to Idaho State and played really well in a tournament in Pocatello, beat Missouri, beat Boise State and beat Idaho State. For me that was kind of the moment where I thought okay this team could do something pretty special, and they kept working hard from there, and as you can tell, they've had a fantastic season. So I couldn't be more proud of them.
Q. What would you say is the identity of your team?
WHITNEY YOUNG HOWARD: I just think our identity like everybody works hard as a whole team. So we never have -- like we have our starters, and then we have our people that are constantly ready, they're always ready to go in, and when they do go in, they play well. So I'd say our identity of the team is the fact that it's our whole team that is going out.
AMY BOSWELL: I'd add we're a team that doesn't give up or never goes away. As Heather said to that Ohio State match, there are a couple of times that we've done that. We've just been down and kind of had that break at halftime. It's like, guys, we are not finished. This is not how we want to end this game.
So just knowing that the strength of our team is our team, and that anybody can come in and we are very comfortable with each other, but just the fact that we work hard. And if you think you've got us, check again.
Q. (Inaudible)?
WHITNEY YOUNG HOWARD: It's definitely hard. Like as a middle, if your game's not working well or if the other team is serving really hard and we're not doing as well passing, it's hard to kind of take that role because, like for me, I just take it upon myself to be a better blocker. Like what can I do to get my team a touch so that we can get a good dig?
AMY BOSWELL: Yeah, I think what's fantastic about this team also is it's not just our four seniors that are the leaders. We have fantastic freshmen who come in, and we've got a really good leaders in our coaches and on the players on this team. So maybe the seniors will take a moment and say something at a crucial time and calm us down, but the leadership comes from all 18, 19 of us.
Q. Can you kind of go down what you worked on in preseason to get where they are?
COACH OLMSTEAD: Yeah, sure. Amy has been obviously here for five years, a fifth-year senior, so for her, it's constantly working on her blocking, just getting over the net where she is and fine tuning her offense. She's always been a good offensive player. She has a good arm, but just seeing the block and continuing to see the block throughout her career, and I think she's done a fantastic job of that this year, just seeing the block, hitting around and being able to get kills better. But always blocking and offense with Amy.
Same thing with Whit. Whit's a little more has a knack for blocking as far as getting over, and she's quick left to right. So for her, offensively, figuring out ways for her to get more kills and she's done that this year. She's doing a great job for us being more involved in the offense, and people have to respect Whitney when she's on the front row.
Then Mary, as far as being a libero, passing and defensively she's been able to catch up to the level of play pretty quickly from the first match we played she's been our starting libero as a freshman. So she's really, I think, embraced that role, and she's a vocal leader and a leader on the court as well. She's going to go for every ball, and that inspires our team to be scrappy.
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Austin Regional NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Jerritt Elliott
Yaazie Bedart-Ghani
Ebony Nwanebu
Micaya White
Texas Longhorns
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We're joined by Texas now. We have head coach Jerritt Elliott, freshman outside hitter, Micaya White, sophomore outside hitter, Yaasmeen Bedart-Ghani, and junior outside hitter, Ebony Nwanebu. We'll start with an opening statement from coach, and then questions from coach and the student-athletes.Coach, if you want to start with your thoughts on the regional?
COACH ELLIOTT: Yeah, we're obviously excited and feel honored to be part of this regional. It's a very strong regional with Michigan, Creighton and BYU. We're fortunate to be playing this at home in front of our home crowd. And our team is playing some of the best volleyball it's played all season long, so we're going in with some confidence.
But as I told the team, you're going to be put in front of the fire a little bit more and there will be more pressure put on you, and we'll see how we handle that. But I like what our mentality is, I like the way our team is focused and the way they're giving each other confidence and playing as a unit right now. So we're excited.
We just need the city of Austin to come out and support us. It's a 3 o'clock game time, and that's the biggest thing we need to do is fill this gym.
Q. Coach, how will your team adjust to the early afternoon match time?
COACH ELLIOTT: We practice at 1:30 every day, so it's nothing that's different for us. We've played some preseason tournaments where we start earlier and TV matches where it's been earlier. So the timing for us is probably even better because we don't have to sit around and wait all day. The hardest thing to do is sit around and wait. So this earlier time, we'll be warming up at 10:15, that means they'll be there by 9:30. So the day gets flowing, and it's a nice routine for us to kind of get comfortable.
Q. How does it feel being in your first NCAA tournament?
MICAYA WHITE: It's exciting. I'm just trying to take it one match at a time.
Q. Ebony, what is the pressure to win?
EBONY NWANEBU: There is a little bit of pressure, mostly because of the name on our back, and people expect us to get to Final Four and advance every round, but it's important not to just assume that you're going to advance. So like Micaya said, we're just taking one game at a time, getting our job done one night, and doing it another night and just keep on trying to build on that until we get to our goal.
YAAZIE BEDART-GHANI: Oh, yeah, I definitely agree with Ebony. Of course, we are Texas. People say well, Texas should be in the Final Four. But I think we've just been focusing on ourselves and our side of the net and doing what we need to do to advance.
COACH ELLIOTT: For me, as a coach, I think since we lost to Iowa State there's been a completely different demeanor. I felt like we had a lot of pressure to succeed and be and win the Big 12. And since that loss, sometimes a loss can jump start you in different ways. We lost our last match in 2012 to Iowa State and won the National Championship.
So the way they're approaching this now is they're super aggressive. There is a different mentality. They're kind of being the ones going after the teams instead of waiting and feeling. So it's been a nice blend and it's been consistent over the last five matches.
So the pressure is more perceived than anything. Our goal is just to be able to take it one match at a time at BYU and that's what our girls are doing, but getting after it at the very first point.
Q. Ebony, what will this rematch with BYU mean to you?
EBONY NWANEBU: Yeah, most of the players that were in that semifinal are still on this team and seniors this year. So I think as a group we want to be able to have redemption for them and for this program. So tomorrow it's just important to show up, do what we can do best, and hopefully get redemption for that year.
Q. You guys have been to the postseason before. How does that experience help you today? How does that benefit you?
YAAZIE BEDART-GHANI: I think it give us a little chip on our shoulder just knowing that we've been here before and it's something that we can definitely do if we handle our business. So I think it gives us experience in this situation, and I think that helps a lot.
Q. Jerritt, do you have to guard against them trying too hard with the revenge factor?
COACH ELLIOTT: We haven't discussed it as a staff at all. It's two completely different teams. Our focus as a staff is just worrying about what we do as a team, and play Texas volleyball in the system that we have and be good at that. Those are more media hypes than anything else and good for the media, but our concern right now is just to play well against BYU and find a way to win that match. It's going to be a battle.
We've been here before. We've got confidence in being able to do that. We've got our home crowd, but there's no guarantee. It's our mentality of just how we prepare, how we stay relaxed and compete over a long period of time.
Q. What does BYU bring?
COACH ELLIOTT: They bring balance. They've got, obviously, a middle that was there when they beat us who is 6'4" and can kind of go over the blocks. They've got good pin hitting. They've got a very good libero. They have a freshman who was a WCC Freshman of the Year, and outside hitter that can score a lot of points.
So they've got a lot of different areas they can hit you with. So the serve-and-pass game will be a big part of it, and how we execute and control the ball will be a big part of it.
At this level, everyone's good. Every round you advance, there are more weapons that you have to deal with. It's exciting, it's fun, it's enjoyable for these guys. They want to be in that position. It's why they've worked all summer long to be here and be part of that. This started last January, and they know that. So it's more about just keeping them calm and relaxed and trusting what we are because our brand right now is really good and what we bring to the table. If we play that brand of our ball, that could bring a lot of success.
Q. Does it help playing here at home?
YAAZIE BEDART-GHANI: It's awesome playing at home again. I definitely think that playing Gregory is a special experience like every time we go out there. So having our fans and being nice and comfortable at home, it's really nice.
COACH ELLIOTT: I've given everybody permission to take the day off. There is a permission slip on our Twitter page at Texas volleyball if you needed to get off work or school.
Q. My question is for any of the players, how does this work between finals and school, do you find any time to kind of just step back and relax?
EBONY NWANEBU: Right after practice, Jerritt actually talked about it the other day, doing our studying early so that way at night we can sleep, and especially now since we have a game tomorrow. Like I have a final on Monday, but I've been studying all week for it, that way tonight I won't have to study for it, tomorrow I won't have to study for it, so I can just focus on it Saturday and Sunday. So I think that approach just takes stress off, just knowing when to do certain things.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Players Mentioned
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Creighton Women's Volleyball Highlights vs. St. John's - 10-17-25
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