BYU vs. Arizona State postmatch quotes

NCAA 1st Round

Arizona State vs. Brigham Young

Dec. 6, 2013

Opening comments

BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead:

"I’m just ecstatic for this team and these girls. That was NCAA volleyball at its finest I think. There was times when it wasn’t the prettiest volleyball, but after losing the fourth set, I’m just unbelievably impressed with their ability to put that behind them and be able to rebound in that fifth set. I thought Ciara Parker was unbelievable defensively and Alexa [Gray] took a ton of swings, as did Tambre [Haddock] and they hit for good numbers, so they really helped us a bunch. I’m just happy for these kids, it’s exciting to be here and play here."

Thoughts on facing Hawai'i tomorrow

Tambre Haddock:

"I’m excited, it’s an awesome opportunity and a big enviorment to just go out and play together and just show what we’re made of."

Alexa Gray:

"I’m excited to play a new opponent. We like to see what everyone’s got and we want to show what we got and we can give even more tomorrow. We’re just excited to play in front of this crowd, it’s an awesome experience and we’re excited to be here."

Coach Olmstead:

"I’ve played here and I believe the volleyball fans are good, well-educated, smart volleyball people, and it’s a great volleyball community. I have all the respect in the world for what Dave (Shoji) has done and I consider him a friend. But the reality is that it’s going to be packed, I mean it was packed right now. So I want the girls to stick around and see it and embrace it. But you should just go out there and play and enjoy the atmosphere. It’s a beautiful court, the upgrades they’ve made are beautiful and they enhanced the experience. It’s a big time arena, with an outstanding volleyball program at a great university, surrounded by a wonderful volleyball community. There’s not many teams in this tournament that’ll ever be able to play in front of a crowd like this."

ON BYU’s block

Coach Olmstead:

"It’s what they’ve been all year. We don’t talk too much about it in practice, it’s just who these kids are, they’re aggressive defensively. I want them to read the game, I want them to read the plays. We rarely scheme block, that’s just us. We see the game and try to read it and get our hands over and get into the opponents court and they did that tonight. I think that’s where the match began to turn and that’s been a key for us all year. A lot of matches have turned in our favor once our block gets going. They started to try and adjust their shots and started to move the ball around and a couple of their hitters got tentative. I think that was one of the biggest turning points of the match.”

On rebounding from the set four loss

Coach Olmstead:

"It’s one of those things where I’m sure other people are going to ask, but it wasn’t me or anything special. Their ability as players to forget that, after losing a lead like that, it was what it was. But for them to just forget about it, especially Alexa (Gray) with three hitting errors in the end, she’s going to embrace it and look what she did in the fifth set, and that’s big time.  I’ll admit I was a little nervous as a coach, but that’s who these kids have been all year, and it’s just awesome.”

Tambre Haddock:

“You just kind of have to look to the people next to you and forget about it. Next play, we've got to move on. We know how we can play. We know that we’re a lot better than allowing a team to come back.”

Alexa Gray:

“After the hitting errors in the fourth set, I thought that in the fifth set I wanted to come back that much harder and make up those three errors that I made. Our setter did a great job giving me the ball, and everyone else digging and getting good touches just helped."

Arizona State head coach Jason Watson:

Opening Comments

"At some point during game four, it was a lot of fun and then I thought at the end of game five, it wasn’t a lot of fun anymore. There was this nice even flow to the game. I felt like we ran out of time and it’s disappointing. But overall, it was pretty remarkable for a first-round match up. Both teams played well and we unfortunately came up short."

On what tipped the balance

"They served a lot better than we had seen. I think it trickled down from there. It was surprising. I didn’t think they were going to serve as well as they did and they did….credit to them and then on our side, we opened serving really well and then got a little conservative towards the end. I think that happens when you’re behind and you’re playing catch up and you’re trying to create point growing opportunities and you’re not being as proactive. Both teams were digging a ton of balls. They managed their game a bit better than us."

 On the atmosphere of the Stan Sheriff

Bianca Arellano: 

"It was great. We came out and they filled the gym and it was a great environment, to be able to play in a place like the University of Hawai‘i. It was a great experience."

Macey Gardner:

"I’ve never played in an environment like this. It was awesome having the fans cheering for both sides of the court. Obviously, when we’re away, we can use something like that to feed off that energy. We came up a little short.”

On the mindset going in to game five

Macey Gardner:

"It’s the same mindset you have going into game one, game two, game three, it’s just a matter of you’re going to go out there and you’re going to give it your best every single point and I think we realized, especially game four that every point is important and that when you only have that short amount of time, you really have to take advantage of being positive. I think we did a good job….it’s just we ran out of time at the end and we didn’t give ourselves time. It’s just a matter of us executing."