The University of Mississippi Athletics
Steven McRoberts Weekly Press Conference #10
10/29/2018 | Volleyball
Ole Miss head volleyball coach Steven McRoberts met with members of the media Monday as part of the fall sports weekly press conference... McRoberts discussed the Rebels nationally televised upset at Alabama Sunday and what's next...
Opening Statement…
"Last Friday we had a tough loss at Auburn. For some reason, they have our number and I don't know what the deal is with that. We have lost six in a row to them, but four of those six have happened in the fifth set. It just seems like we are there every single time and cannot quite pull it out. The two times we have lost to them this year have been in the fifth set, but we had a really good bounce back match yesterday at Alabama. You could probably say the flip side of what I just said about Auburn, because we are 5-1 against Alabama in the last six. We have had some success against them, and most of those matches have gone to four or five sets. We lost a really close first set yersterday where we saw Alabama have three set points. Then, we had four or five set points before they beat us 30-28. I felt like from there on out, though, we handled them well. They are a really good team and projected to be an NCAA Tournament team. They went into last weekend with a 35 RPI and had won three matches in a row, so this was a really good win for our team at this point."
On standout performers
"[Senior outside] Caitlin Wernentin had a tremendous weekend; the first two double-doubles of her career happened over the weekend. [Junior outside] Emily Stroup continues to be a force for our team. She is on pace to break the single-season kills record. She now has 439 kills and that puts her second behind her own 474 record of last year, and we still have seven matches to go. Our middles played well this weekend- [junior]Nayo Warnell, [sophomore] Bayleigh Scott and [freshman] Aubrey Sultemeier. Aubrey came in off the bench and did a really nice job yesterday. [Sophomore] Lauren Bars had a really nice match setting yesterday, and then [senior libero] Caroline Adams had 26 digs. It is always nice when you can get up here and talk about multiple people having great matches and great weekends."
On the upcoming week...
"This week we have Tennessee and Kentucky coming in so it is going to be a really tough weekend as both teams are projected to make the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky right now would be a national seed and if they win out, they could get in the Top 8 or even Top 4. Tennessee is receiving votes in the poll, and they have won four in a row coming in. The team continues to keep coming, working hard, and we are still improving even now. Hopefully, we can get a couple of good crowds to come again. Last time we had two home matches, we had over 1,000 each time, and it truly made a difference."
On dropping the first set, but battling back to beat Alabama…
"I think it shows the maturity of this group. In the past if we would have lost that, there was a chance we would get swept. You see, two things happened in that set. One- we were down 24-21, and we fought hard in the 20s giving ourselves four chances to win it. There was a 50-50 call to end a point, and the referee decided to call it on the side of Alabama. If that doesn't happen, we could possibly have gotten the sweep. I think from a composure standpoint, it was the best match we have played all year. No matter if they made a small run or even if we were making a big one, we were not getting too emotionally involved. We just stayed steady throughout the whole match and I think that showed a big step in the right direction for us from a maturity standpoint."
Opening Statement…
"Last Friday we had a tough loss at Auburn. For some reason, they have our number and I don't know what the deal is with that. We have lost six in a row to them, but four of those six have happened in the fifth set. It just seems like we are there every single time and cannot quite pull it out. The two times we have lost to them this year have been in the fifth set, but we had a really good bounce back match yesterday at Alabama. You could probably say the flip side of what I just said about Auburn, because we are 5-1 against Alabama in the last six. We have had some success against them, and most of those matches have gone to four or five sets. We lost a really close first set yersterday where we saw Alabama have three set points. Then, we had four or five set points before they beat us 30-28. I felt like from there on out, though, we handled them well. They are a really good team and projected to be an NCAA Tournament team. They went into last weekend with a 35 RPI and had won three matches in a row, so this was a really good win for our team at this point."
On standout performers
"[Senior outside] Caitlin Wernentin had a tremendous weekend; the first two double-doubles of her career happened over the weekend. [Junior outside] Emily Stroup continues to be a force for our team. She is on pace to break the single-season kills record. She now has 439 kills and that puts her second behind her own 474 record of last year, and we still have seven matches to go. Our middles played well this weekend- [junior]Nayo Warnell, [sophomore] Bayleigh Scott and [freshman] Aubrey Sultemeier. Aubrey came in off the bench and did a really nice job yesterday. [Sophomore] Lauren Bars had a really nice match setting yesterday, and then [senior libero] Caroline Adams had 26 digs. It is always nice when you can get up here and talk about multiple people having great matches and great weekends."
On the upcoming week...
"This week we have Tennessee and Kentucky coming in so it is going to be a really tough weekend as both teams are projected to make the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky right now would be a national seed and if they win out, they could get in the Top 8 or even Top 4. Tennessee is receiving votes in the poll, and they have won four in a row coming in. The team continues to keep coming, working hard, and we are still improving even now. Hopefully, we can get a couple of good crowds to come again. Last time we had two home matches, we had over 1,000 each time, and it truly made a difference."
On dropping the first set, but battling back to beat Alabama…
"I think it shows the maturity of this group. In the past if we would have lost that, there was a chance we would get swept. You see, two things happened in that set. One- we were down 24-21, and we fought hard in the 20s giving ourselves four chances to win it. There was a 50-50 call to end a point, and the referee decided to call it on the side of Alabama. If that doesn't happen, we could possibly have gotten the sweep. I think from a composure standpoint, it was the best match we have played all year. No matter if they made a small run or even if we were making a big one, we were not getting too emotionally involved. We just stayed steady throughout the whole match and I think that showed a big step in the right direction for us from a maturity standpoint."
Players Mentioned
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MB
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MB
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OH
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