On flow of match against South Carolina...
"It really
was one of our better performances. As I often say, our first touch
really determines so much of that. Our setting is becoming more and
more, we are just able to put more pace on the ball and our first ball
is better. We are able to get it out to our outside hitters a little
faster and our hitters loved that rhythm and it really broke up our
opponents block and just had a lot of success with it. I also thought
the middles were really good at getting out early in the air and being a
huge threat against their defense."
On takeaways from the Florida match...
"Of
course we were really disappointed. That was a great opportunity for us,
and we didn't seize the opportunity and it was a little bit hard to
take, but we did have some beautiful performances in that match. We saw
that our numbers are second highest in the league in just about every
category from our attack percentages to how low we are keeping our
opponents to their hitting percentage, to minimum number of errors both
in serving and attacking. It's clear not only by the numbers but just
how the team feels we are getting better and better so that was probably
the best takeaway. There were some plays and strings of plays that
prevented us from getting the win on Sunday
however, sometimes that happens. We lost momentum and we didn't respond
really well. Hey, you learn as you go and we are constantly learning
and still have 11 matches in the league, and we are going to go for it."
On what the team is working on this week...
"I
think since our serve receive is getting better we are trying to
improve our numbers on our first ball sight out which is the very minute
that the first ball comes to your side from the server that you finish
that rally right away. There is a percentage there that top teams in the
country, the final four teams, can first ball sight out about 60%. We
are at about mid 40's and that's really only one and a half more every
10 serves that we put away. We know that we can get there and because
our passing is getting better we've made some changes to our back court
and I think that is something that we are definitely working on as well
as attacking out of system balls. Balls that are coming from the back
court or got dug straight up in the air, we still got a swing on those
yet our percentage needs to be higher in how often we get kills on those
sets. We have plenty of things to work on and the girls are great when
they come in every day with blue collar work ethic and they get after
it."
