Coach Kevin Hambly opening statement:

"First, I want to congratulate Murray State on a great year. They were a tough team, they fought hard, and they were really competitive. We were fortunate to have a significant size advantage and I think we took advantage of that, but they had great spirit and they competed hard. I respect the heck out of what they've done and watching tape on them as much as we have, I thought it was a great team. I thought from our standpoint, it took us awhile to get going, especially defensively. They had a lot to do with that; they came out hot and it took us awhile to adjust to them offensively. Once we did that, I felt like we played pretty good defensive, and offensively we did what we needed to. I thought Lex got a lot of hitters involved, got the middles involved. When we're doing that, usually our offense is pretty balanced and we hit at a high efficiency."

Coach Hambly on being the aggressor:

"That was the difference I thought. We didn't play patty-cake early, we were going for it, and we were attacking. Otherwise, we would have been in some trouble because I thought we had some hard time stopping them."

Jocelynn Birks on her attacks:

"I think Lex [Viliunas] was doing a really good job of putting the ball where I needed to be. Like we said, we have a little bit of a size advantage over them."

"I think I was just trying to hit around the block and, maybe, to their hands sometimes."

Alexis Viliunas on spreading the ball around:

"Yeah, I think our passing was good and whenever the passing is good, you can get the middles involved. Katie [Stadick] and Anna [Dorn] were getting up for me in transition, which is good and something that doesn't always happen. I was getting the ball to them and they were putting it down."

Coach Hambly on handling them defensively:

"We worked. I thought we were settling on it being an offensive set instead of working on the block and on the backcourt defensive, but especially the backcourt defense. We watched a couple balls hit the ground that were clearly in, at least from the sideline. And then the block; I thought we did a better job of picking up the hitters and getting over, and getting into their space. I thought early we were lackadaisical as far as our movement and that gave them some seams to attack."

Coach Hambly on Murray State's attack:

"They took some good cuts; they took some big swings, especially [Taylor Olden]. Olden, I thought she took some really good swings and Brandi [Donnelly] did a really nice job of digging her in the cross, then she kind of forced. I don't think they did it because of the size; I think they had to because we were digging their hard stuff and they were trying ways to score. I thought Brandi did an excellent job of getting into that cross. I don't remember a ball hitting the floor or hitting the ten-foot line, where we thought they'd hit, that scored. I thought we dug all of those and it's nice to rely on that."

Head Coach David Schwepker's opening statement:

"I'm just excited. Our team is very excited to be here and get to play the University of Illinois. I'm very pleased with how my team performed tonight. I thought they gave it all and they went out there and fought extremely hard. I'm just very proud of everyone on my team. They'e a great group of girls and I love them."

Coach Schwepker on height disadvantage:

"We don't come up against many teams that big in our conference. We knew it was going to be like that and we worked this week on that. Some things that we might normally do don't work against a team like this. It's a difficult situation because we don't get to practice against a team like this every day, we don' get to see it every day."

Coach Schwepker on execution:

"I thought that the first set we were loose and did well, in the second set I think the girls were too excited and maybe tensed up a little bit and then the third set they started to play a lot looser and did some things that we normally do, that I see them do week in and week out. I saw them do that better in the first and third sets than the second set, everyone was real tense and not within our system whatsoever."

Coach Schwepker on his team's effort:

"That was our big thing. As a coach I just want to see them go for it and that's what they did. Leave it out there, go for it, don't back down to anybody and then whatever happens happens. That's what we talked about all week and I think they did that."

#4 Sam Bedard on handling big hitters defensively:

"I think I could have done a better job, but I gave it my all. I didn't know what to expect in the first set and then I adjusted and our whole team adjusted. We didn't play that well in the second set, but we figured out what their flaws were and what they were going to do. Then in the third set we figured it out and kind of came back, but al-in-all I think we did a good job. We probably could've done better, but I thought I did pretty well."

#4 Sam Bedard on team role:

"It was a little bit difficult, but my main focus is just to get the ball high up in the air and have them swing high and maybe try to hit it off the block or something like that to get a point. My main focus is just to throw it up their high for them so they can reach and hit it."

#8 Kristen Besselsen on feelings after first set:

"I felt pretty good about it after the first set. We stayed with them for the majority of it and came back around the end. I think that kind of went to our head in the second set, we kind of let it go and thought we'd be able to keep it on but it didn't stay like that."

#4 Sam Bedard on preparing for height disadvantage:

"One thing we worked on was just tooling. That was our main focus. Swinging high and trying to hit high over the block, but my main focus was to set it out to the pins and just have them try to tool the block. I think we did a successful job at that, we did awesome. We did really well, especially Kristen [Besselsen] she used the block very well so I was really proud of her."

#8 Kristen Besselsen on next year:

"I feel pretty good about it. Everyone is coming back and we're going to be strong again next year. We'll hopefully get better every practice. We'll be right here again next season."