What Kelly Sheffield said after NCAA National Semifinal loss to Kentucky

The Wisconsin Badgers had a heartbreaking finish to their season on Thursday, losing 3-2 to the No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats in a thriller.

The Badgers had taken a 2-1 lead after the third set and were on the verge of victory, but Kentucky won two close sets to end the match and take their place in the Championship Game on Sunday against the Texas A&M Aggies.

After the match, head coach Kelly Sheffield spoke about his team’s effort and the incredible season that ended just short of the Badgers’ final goal.

OpeningStatement

“I thought that match was a lot of players that were playing with courage and laying everything out on the floor and bouncing back from things. It’s obviously a tough loss when, you know, 15-13 in the fifth. It was those guys making some plays, and they just made a little bit more. Their ability to come back after that first set was really, really impressive. We gifted them quite a few points, and then what [Eva] Hudson did the latter half of that match was really, really impressive. I think hitting .600 in the fourth and fifth sets is unbelievable.

“Carter Booth having 21 kills [in the] middle, you just, you don’t see that very much. Thought we passed brilliantly for the entire match and about three or four points in the fifth set and where we didn’t [come up], their serving specialist put in some really, really nasty, nasty serves. And then we just stayed with it and tried to find a way to get back into that fifth set. And we did, which I thought took a lot of courage as well. And we knew we were going to have to. That match is just both teams throwing haymakers and they were able to land the last one.”

On Mimi Colyer’s season…

That’s a monster season that she just had. Right. And that’s a pretty big match right there. It’s unusual to lose a match when, four of the sets, you have more kills than your opponents. That just doesn’t happen very much.

You know you’re in a good place when your better players allow you to coach you, and they lean into coaching, and you can challenge them, and it sets the tone. Players like both of these two (Mimi Colyer and Charlie Fuerbringer) that were up here, people like Carter [Booth], that when they lean into coaching, and you hold them responsible, and they stand up tall and they move forward, it sends a message that reverberates to everybody.

“And she came in here, and she’s wanting to take her game to the next level. And she has. I mean, she’s had a great college career, and [her] last year was [her] best year, and just thankful for her and very proud of her because when you transfer with one year, there’s got to be a lot of trust to get in the deep end. And so many people, when they’re toward the end of their career, they’re preserving some things, ego or whatever. And a lot of times those players will just get in the shallow end. And she dove headfirst.

On Kristen Simon’s injury, recovery…

“She was in a lot of pain. She was in a lot of pain. So you’re talking with the trainer, and she said, yeah, I mean, it hurts and she can keep going. And, Kristen’s looking at me saying, ‘I don’t know why you’re looking at me. This is what we do.’ And their opposite had a nasty spell as well. And, you know, it was a heavyweight fight. And so either team that loses that match, you’re going to go back and find a dozen or more things that you wish you would have done different.

“I think that’s, I guess, natural to look at the things that you wish you had, but that’d be missing. The gems of that match. There was so much good and courage that both teams and the players were playing with, and I’m proud of [Kentucky head coach] Craig [Skinner] being able to get his team in that kind of moment to leave that first set in the past and get back.”

On losing despite having the advantage in most stats…

“Everything was going right in the first set, right? And I thought we flushed that. We had six service errors. That was a lot. And they were all bunched together, right, in that set. But the rest of our game, we’re just playing, right? I mean, that’s one of the things we talked about, is just keep, keep having courage over there and keep siding out and keep going. We passed. We passed great the entire match until except for three minutes in the fifth. And, so there was a lot of everything was going right in the first set, but we continued to pass. We hit for high percentage. We had more kills in four of the five sets and [Eva] Hudson stepped out of the phone booth right with her cape on, and we knew where it was going and it didn’t matter.”

On Carter Booth’s season and leadership…

“I think everybody saw this. She was a player that was on a mission. She was going to do anything and everything to help get this team across the finish line. And the competitiveness, the fight, the fearlessness, the bringing others, looking to elevate each other, this team did a better job of elevating each other than any team I’ve ever had. It’s how you want your career to go at the end, and you hope that players can tap into that earlier. I’m not speaking of her. It’s what you want for every player is to just, you know, she was in beast mode, but it wasn’t just tonight. She’s been like that for a little bit, but she’s hurting right now. She’s hurting right now, but in due time, she’ll be really, really proud of herself.”

On what Booth has meant to the culture…

“Oh, man. When you get in this profession, you’re teachers, you’re coaching, but you’re teaching. And when you see people that are just [growing], I mean, the loss really hurts, right? I mean, the loss hurts, but there’s just so much pride. You can have both of those things. And I’m just so proud of her. So proud of the journey that she has done and the leadership, her ability to communicate, how she leads others. I’d say early on, her and I were at each other quite a bit. Probably more me than her. I was on her a lot, and she didn’t give up on me or herself and just leaned into [it] hard. And just the growth that she has done and then just the effectiveness of her as a leader was just through the roof there at the end. One thing we say is not about being right, it’s about being effective. And she became one of the most effective leaders that we’ve ever had here this last year.”

On what to take away from the season/loss…

“Yeah, I mean, it’s what we do. At some point, we will dive into this very, very deeply. Man, we lost a lot of players last year, and we brought in a lot of new ones. Either freshmen who were coming in or people that transferred in and you had other people that stepped up. Charlie, as a different level of leader, certainly Carter is a different level of leader. And you just built a team. You just build and build and build and go through that entire process. I do not look at this as a failure.

“This is one of the most successful seasons that I’ve ever been a part of. Yeah, you can hurt, but also be proud. Both of those things are together. So, yeah, us losing 15-13 [in] the fifth, is not. What do you got to do to get over the hump? That is just nowhere near where my mind is. Could we have gotten a couple more points? Absolutely. This team came pretty darn close to maxing out. At the end of the day, that’s what you’re looking for. You want your team, you want your players to max out. Our seniors had a heck of a match. Our younger kids played with courage. They learned what courage was, and this team came together and grew. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”