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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Head Coach Steven McRoberts Weekly Press Conference
10/19/2015 | Volleyball
Opening Statement
"I want to say congratulations to coach (Matt) Mott. He's doing a great job [with the soccer team]. As far as our team, it's nice to get a road win. In the SEC, it is hard to do. We started off our first four SEC road games at Florida, Texas A&M, Missouri and Arkansas. Those are four teams that will be in the NCAA Tournament in December. Against Florida, we played okay but got swept. A&M, we laid an egg and got swept."
On Missouri Match
"We went to Missouri this weekend, and I feel like the score doesn't really show how well we played. I looked at some of the sets that we lost, and it looks like it was really one sided. But that really big run that they made in each set that hurt us. Winning a set at Missouri, Missouri only has one loss in the conference right now. They're tied or maybe a half game behind Kentucky for first in the conference. They're 12 in the RPI. I think it gave us a lot of confidence. I told the team on Saturday as we were finishing up practice, I think we're about to put it together. We are so close, and I kept feeling like the last couple weeks we were having good practices and showing some things in matches where I felt like we were getting better. I said, 'I don't know if it will be tomorrow, but I feel like we are going to get a big upset win somewhere.'"
On Arkansas Win
"To us, with the way we can play, in our own program, we don't consider it an upset, but everyone in the volleyball community does. Arkansas is a team that beat Florida at home and beat Wisconsin at a neutral site. Wisconsin was a Final Four team last year that returned a lot of players. Both of those squads are top-25 teams. So for us to get a win at Arkansas is a huge confidence boost for us going into the rest of the season. With 11 matches left, getting our 17th win over the weekend helps us have a winning record for the second year in a row. Late in the game, Ty Laporte, when we got into that fifth set, she carried us. She had five kills of the 15 points we had. That was huge for us. Being able to win in Fayetteville for Aubrey Edie, who is a Fayetteville, Arkansas native, I know she enjoyed that. She was 0-2 going into the match. Being an Arkansas boy myself and never have beaten them, it was nice. My phone blew up after the match with a lot of friends in Arkansas saying congratulations. Probably the biggest thing for us was, we talked about how well our middles have played in Laporte and Nakeyta Clair. They played as well as they have been. Ty had 17 kills and Nakeyta had 16 kills. But the difference maker was Lexi (Thompson) and Kate (Gibson) on the outside, both adding 15 kills. Even though our errors doubled by what Arkansas had, we were just making points. And the stats are a little skewed in that because we played so bad in that fourth set. That's where volleyball can be frustrating and crazy. You can win really big, but then you start again 0-0. I felt like for the first time this season, I didn't see us get rattled throughout the match. We played Friday night in front of about 3,500 at Missouri and played in front of 1,200 at Arkansas, which was their 10th largest crowd in their history. We handled the pressure well."
On Playing at Home this Weekend
"We're excited to play at home this week. We play Tennessee on Friday. Last year, they were at the bottom of the conference. This year, they have a good team. They're 17-5, so we know that it is going to be a tough match. Then we get the No. 1 team in the conference on Sunday, Kentucky. So this could be another great win for us in the conference. I think we sit at ninth or 10th, but we are one game out of fourth. I'm proud of these ladies and the hard work they put in. It's really paid off over the last few weeks and yesterday."
On Outside Hitter Kate Gibson
"She was really big for us yesterday. One thing that we started utilizing more with her is her attack off the back row when we come with two hitter phase. She is a weapon, and she got some important kills for us off the back row yesterday. Her jump serve is coming along well. That is something that is new for her that we put in this year. She isn't getting a lot of aces with it, but yesterday, she got Arkansas out of system a lot. When she stays aggressive and gets the points that she got for us yesterday, even though there may be a few errors sprinkled in there, it really helps us."
