It's crunch time near the end of school, so we gave the guys Friday off. |
It's do or die. We have the ability to rise to the occasion, so we think we have a shot at it. We cannot let anything bother us. We just need to play our game. |
It's not how we wanted to end the season. We played a very good team that is excellent at their place. They did the things they needed to do to beat us, namely ball control. Congratulations to them. They are well coached. |
It's probably from over-use. It's going to be sore for a while. It's probably chronic. |
Ivan is an excellent player and this is a great honor for him. This is also a great compliment to the team. Everyone played well and that opened things up for Ivan. He stepped up and was a big part of our attack. |
Ivan is still sore. It's hard to say whether he'll play. |
Our game tonight was like a roller coaster. We were up at certain points in the game and at other times we were down -- we were down to close out ball games. |
Our middles are very good. We passed really well and that opened things up for our offense. |
Serving becomes very different at sea level. At altitude, the ball sails farther. The ball gets driven into the court at sea level. Our serve becomes harder and it's a mental deal as well. But the other team (UCLA) is much more practiced at serving at sea level. |
Stanford is a scrappy, hard-working team. They may not have a very good record but any team in this league can bite you on any given night. |
Stanford is a scrappy, hardworking team. They may not have a very good record, but any team in this league can bite you on any given night. We don't want to be outworked by them. We will have to play well to win. |
The bottom line is that at critical times, the other team had better ball control. We played a lot better in the second match. We missed six serves in the fifth game and you just can't do that against a team like Hawaii. |
The tournament was a good experience. We've been trying to focus on serve and serve receive and to ensure our chemistry and intensity are good over time. I thought we played with chemistry and were consistent for the most part this weekend. |
These matches are really important. We can't be losing and expect to have a high seed. We want to host a first-round tournament match. |
They [UC Irvine] are great because they are consistent and they have a lot of confidence. They have a balanced attack and all of their positions are pretty solid. |