Dec. 6, 2003

Recap| Box Score

Maryland head coach Janice Kruger:
"I am extremely proud of my team and the year we have had. It's disappointing to lose, but we did accomplish a lot of our goals this year and Colorado State is just a great team."

"Tonight in the match, they [Colorado State] served the ball really well and that kept us out of our offense. They had a lot of offense coming at us. We just didn't seem to get into the groove like we have been. They are a great team; you can see why they have won every match since September. They just find a way to get it done. Our offense hit a .198, which is lower than normal. We had some chances in game two and we got confident, but I give a lot of credit to Colorado State."

"They are a big power team and they see the block well and hit around it and deep. One of the things we were trying to deal with was Rachel Wagener. She had been sick this morning, so we just didn't have that total team feeling going in. Maybe that was one of the things that affected us."

"I just had a lot of fun coaching this group of athletes. They have had the chemistry, the leadership, determination. It's been an enjoyable year for me; they have brought life back into the program and I am extremely proud to have won the ACCs."

Maryland senior Lynnsy Jones:
"I am not disappointed at all [with the season]. We had an awesome year and we won the ACC Championship. We met our goals and it was great to play on a team with so much chemistry."

Maryland junior Aimee Huddleston:
"We overachieved as a team. We were expected to finish seventh in our conference and we just worked hard and we couldn't pull it out tonight. We fought the whole season though and the program will continue to do well. We have a lot of people coming back and we will work hard in the summer and the offseason and make things happen next year too."

Colorado State Head Coach Tom Hilbert:
"I continue to be amazed by how well our team competes in tough situations. It's been like that in the second half of the season - they just find a way to win. This match was really about us passing serves, because I think Maryland is an extremely tough serving team, and if you can't give them back something with heat, they are a great transition team, too. I felt like that was a key and we did that throughout the entire first game. Then Dre (Downs) went on a great serving run which locked it up for us.

"In the second game, we didn't pass very well through that little spurt of the second game, got down 15-5, and we took a timeout and just wanted to compose ourselves and get some rhythm back and just start siding out again, whether we win the game or not. We just continued to chip away at the lead and won that second game. That has to be a huge mental letdown for Maryland that we would come back from a 15-5 deficit. I was very proud, I felt very fortunate.

"We came into the third game and felt that if we pressed in the beginning we'd win. Maryland came back and competed quite well and kept it real close. Throughout the Mountain West Tournament and all the tough matches we've been playing, our motto has been to keep it close and win it at the end, and that's exactly what we did.

"I don't know that it's experience in the NCAA Tournament, but it's experience in those kinds of matches. We have come back - in the match against Vegas we came back from a big deficit - we know we can do it. Once you've done it a few times you revisit those experiences and your team just understands they can do it. If you are going to do that, the key is not to say, 'We are going to come back all at once,' it's 'Hey, let's just get some momentum back and see what happens.' The worst case scenario if you do that is you lose the game, but you still have momentum and some feel for the next game."

On having the Katie Joe Shirley back in the lineup: "It makes us stronger in a number of ways. She's a really good serve receiver back row player, she's a smart player, smart blocker, so every ball touch she gets is usually a positive for us, plus the fact that she hits well. Her shoulder is still very soar, she doesn't have the heat that she probably would had she not got hurt, but she still had a great night. Hitting .500 in 14 swings, and she does that over and over and over again, so that was a really good thing for us."

On the right side attack: "Attacking the ball from that side of the court was a big part of our game offensive game plan. We wanted Bri (Frech) to get a lot of sets, we wanted Dre (Downs) to get a lot of sets, and Bri got 17 and Dre got 19, which is pretty good. We knew if we attacked that side of the court we would have pretty good success and it worked for us."

Melissa Courtney
On moving on: "We set a pretty high standard for ourselves at the beginning of the season, and this was a big goal of ours, and to be going to the Sweet 16 is really exciting. We know it's going to be hard and it's going to be tough work and this week in practice we are going to have to work hard, but I think we are just enjoying the fact that we won tonight and are moving on to the next round."

Dre Downs
On the pivotal second game rally: "It was a really big deal. I remember looking at the scoreboard thinking that this isn't over. I know that Maryland is thinking we have a 10-point lead, and a lot of times in those situations your opponent gets very comfortable, and that's when you just flip it and you make two or three points and they get worried and shaky, and I think that's what Maryland did. We are a strong enough team that if someone does that to us, we are going to come back full force, and so I think that was a key part of the game that we got into Maryland's head and they knew that we had a very strong team no matter what situation we are in."

Casey Bauer
On traveling to Maryland to play: "I think we were hoping to host, and when we knew we were traveling really far it was hard because we had class and finals are coming up. I think we used it as motivation that we wanted to host, but we didn't, so we were going to come over here and show that we deserve to host next year, maybe."