The University of Mississippi Athletics
Steven McRoberts Weekly Press Conference
11/6/2017 | Volleyball
Ole Miss volleyball head coach Steven McRoberts me with the media Monday to recap the Rebels' second win against Mississippi State this year and look ahead to this weekend's matches.
Opening statement…
"Big win for us yesterday. It is always nice for us to beat State. Somebody said after the match 'I bet you are proud to beat state.' I said we are proud to beat anybody. Of course, it is a little bit nicer when it is those guys, especially over the past few years when we have struggled a little bit [against them]. I was looking at the standings after the match, we are literally one point away from being in fourth place. We are eighth in the conference right now. If we would have beaten LSU when we had two match points at their place then they we are tied with them for fourth place, it is that close of a race between fourth and eighth where we sit currently. We have a lot of big matches coming up, It was nice to start off November with a win and now we have five more to go."
On highlights from the State match…
"Bayleigh Scott played incredible yesterday. She had 10 kills and hit over .700. If she would have had a couple more kills she would have qualified for the SEC stats. That percentage is second in the league, of course, she didn't qualify because she needed two more kills. You must have 12 to qualify to be on the list but, that's how good of a match she had. Nayo Warnell our other middle had a career-high 14 kills and hit over .350. As a team, we hit .323, which is the highest for the season. It was nice offensively to play that well. Caitlin Wernentin came into the match against Arkansas and we changed our offense up, she played well against Arkansas and continued that against State with nine kills and only three errors.
On confidence gained for the stretch run…
As a team, we played a complete match. We had a little bit of a bump in the second set where we gave up the set to State. That is the first time they have won a set since Sept. 24. But, we need to be challenged especially with this stretch we have coming up. We have five matches and three of them are teams we already have a win over earlier in the conference season. So, we feel confident coming down the stretch that we can get on a run. We have Georgia on the road Friday and Texas A&M at home on Sunday."
On the rematch against Georgia…
"We are expecting a tough match against them especially going on the road. They have won three in a row right now. They swept Alabama at home yesterday. They went on the road and swept Missouri and we struggled against Missouri both times. They also beat Arkansas right before we played Arkansas and lost in five. They are young and have a new coaching staff. They are playing with a lot of confidence right now. I think we match up pretty well against them but it's going to be, can we go on the road and play well? It's one that's really a trigger point for us that if we can go on the road and get a win Friday that might be just what we need to get over that hump we have been talking about all season and get some momentum going."
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