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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 10, 2014Kelly SheffieldTHE MODERATOR: The volleyball team, winners of 13 straight matches, hosts Michigan at the field house on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. on the BIG TEN Network. Then on Saturday the badgers play at Iowa at 7 p.m. Head Coach Kelly Sheffield is here. We'll have some opening comments and then take questions. COACH SHEFFIELD: I guess a few notes from this previous week, you know, survived a tough one out there in Ann Arbor. First five‑gamer that we've been in in conference play and down 13‑11 and fought back and outscored them 5 to 1 and sneak out of there with a hard‑fought win. And a couple of days later, really tough. It was three‑game sweep, but it certainly didn't feel like that against Michigan State. Don't think there was a whole lot of defense being played in that particular match. I think both teams were hitting at a pretty high percentage, but nonetheless, two good wins we were fortunate to get. I thought Haleigh Nelson, really proud of her after a rough week prior to that. I thought she had a great weekend, Kelli Bates I thought was spectacular at times as well. And we got Michigan again. So this time back at our place. So that should match up to be another Jim Dandy. Q. It probably never seemed easy, but these last three or so have been more of a struggle, even when you sweep. Are teams doing anything differently? Is it strictly things you see on your side or are teams adjusting to what they've seen over the first 10, 12 matches of the conference? COACH SHEFFIELD: That's a good question. I think it's a little bit of both. You know, I didn't think we played particularly well against Indiana. I didn't think that we played particularly well against Michigan. I thought Abby Cole had her way against us. We really had a tough time slowing her down. We didn't slow her down at all. When she didn't kill, it was almost always because of her own error rather than anything we did. I'm not sure that we‑‑ I don't know. For whatever reason we weren't dialed in the way that we needed to be dialed in against Michigan. I don't know. I think a lot of that had to do with them. It just felt like we were going uphill the entire night. I mean the entire night was a struggle for us. And they were doing‑‑ everything they were doing we had a tough time with. Michigan State, I thought we played pretty well. I thought they had a really good game plan that they executed. I thought we played pretty well, especially offensively. We had a tough time slowing them down, but I think it's a little bit of both. You know, November, this is a tough time for everybody, and all the fall sports. I don't know if we're tired or people are playing pretty good volleyball against us. We're getting everybody's best shot. Q. With the expectations that you guys have, do you enjoy wins like that or do you walk away with it feeling like a loss when you don't maybe play as well as you'd hoped? COACH SHEFFIELD: That's a good question. You know, Michigan, I mean that's‑‑ it was important for us to be tested like that. We didn't play particularly well, but we survived. And to do‑‑ to win at the highest level, you're going to have nights where just things aren't going your way, and are you able to battle and stay together and fight and all those things, and I thought we did a really good job with that, and we talked about that of awards in the hotel. We got to East Lansing and got together before everybody crashed for the evening and told them, you know, hey, really proud of them. Not just the fact that they won, but they were able to stick together. And you know, we hadn't been challenged like that, and sometimes you can just sit there and just fall apart and just say tonight's not our night and have a bunch of excuses or whatever. We just kind of stuck together and kept going, and we were proud of that fact. We didn't think we‑‑ we weren't excited about how we went into the match because I didn't think we were locked in and ready to go the way that we needed to be, but I was really happy with how we responded to kind of a tough time. So yeah, we felt really good coming out of that match. And we felt really good about how we played at the Michigan State, because the previous two matches we didn't play real well. And you know, so that's one of those things, all right, two matches where you don't play well is one thing, but three is a trend, and we don't want to go down that road. And so there was a lot of positives coming out of this past weekend for us. Q. Kelly, there are a lot of good freshmen in this league. Michigan's got a couple of them, too. But Kelli Bates, where does she fit in the realm of things in the conference as far as rookies are concerned and what type of impact has she had on your team? COACH SHEFFIELD: Where she fits I'll let her people figure that out. I know we've got a kid that is just growing by leaps and bounds. And you know, the confidence that she has‑‑ I mean she took match‑‑ she took both the final rally of the match against Michigan she took both swings. One of them was a really nice play that they made, and the second one she put even more heat on it. I mean it was with authority, and just buried that ball to end the match. And you know, her head coach has been on her quite a bit this year, and I think she's responded really well. She's growing. She's got a lot more confidence. Her game is just expanding. We don't hide her like what we did earlier. Earlier in the year we hid her a lot in serve receive. And she's turned into one of our top passers the past month. Offensively, you know, earlier in the year she had one or two shots, and if we played a team that was able to defend those, she had no answer and would just get taken out. And right now she's got a lot of different tools. She's growing as much as any freshman I've been around, and it's‑‑ it is a massive role for us. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for coach? COACH SHEFFIELD: Thanks a lot, guys. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Kelly. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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