Quotes for Youth Olympic Games Gold-Medal Match

U.S. Girls' Youth Olympic Team Head Coach Rod Coach:
They were much more together than we were, outside of the first game where we followed a real good game plan. Obviously our passing broke down. We were scrambling around trying to get balls up. They played good defense and we gave them a chance to set up around it.

On absence of Elizabeth McMahon: She’s the top scorer for our team, so obviously it was a big loss. The continuity of the team goes when you take a piece of it out, especially when she’s your top scorer. Obviously we would have loved to have her, but we had a freak accident that took her out of it. Somehow we have to find a way to work through it.

On Team USA throughout the YOG: They grew as a whole unit. They spent a lot of time together off the court, doing things in the Village. They’re going to have a lifelong experience here and be friends with the people on this team for the rest of their careers. From that aspect, it was a great success.

Biggest difference between first game and gold medal game: Our serve/receive. We would end up not being able to pass the ball, either shanking it completely or making such a bad pass that we couldn’t run our offense. You can’t do anything if you can’t pass.

On what the team will take away: They’re silver medalists and nobody can ever take that away from them. They earned that. There’s no shame in losing a match to a team that’s playing better. They just have to fight and find a way to be in there and they did.

On character of Team USA to come together in such a short time: They worked very hard to bond together throughout the whole event. Some of the girls had never even met each other before, so the opportunity to come and put the team together and represent your country regardless of how it’s presented is important. I was very proud of the players for being able to put aside their differences, find a way to bond together and fight as hard as they could. We got beat by a better team today; we were the better team the last time we played. That’s sport. You go out and you fight, you try to win every match, every point, and this time we came up short.

On absence of Elizabeth McMahon: Unfortunately in sports there are things that you cannot control. Elizabeth was simply walking up to the Village to get something to eat and tripped over a little chain that was across the road and landed on her arm and broke her arm. It’s something we had no control over. You take your top scorer from your team and obviously that’s a big part of your offense and transition. She was our top scorer, so obviously that impacts how well we can play. It didn’t have an effect on our passing, but maybe we could have scored out of some of those situations where we didn’t have good passes.

Samantha Cash:
We won the silver medal. It’s an Olympic medal. That’s a really good thing. Belgium played a great match, and they came out, and they were fired up. It was a great game. I’m happy to be a part of it.

My team is amazing. That we even accomplished this much after just being here in Singapore and training is truly incredible.

We did well the first game, but we just couldn’t execute the next game. We had a game plan, but we just couldn’t bring it together. We fell apart.

Katie Mitchell:
I think we did well on not giving up. We didn’t play as individuals. We came together as a team and fought to the very last point. We didn’t point at each other and say ‘Why didn’t you get that ball?’ Instead, we said, ‘We’re going to get that ball; we play American volleyball.”

On coming together in such a short time: It says that we’re very strong both as individuals who come together with different experiences and different strengths on the court, but we’re also a very strong team who accept each other as different people and within three weeks try to turn out a gold medal team and fight against some of the best teams in the world. We also wanted to represent our Youth National Team, who weren’t able to be here, but we put up a good fight for them.

It’s my first time competing for USA. It’s a very special experience, but I wish it would have been gold.

I think our serve/receive broke down. I think we started shooting a little too high on our expectations just automatically thinking about offense, not going back to the basics on passing. That hurt a lot. We had talked about a game plan, but we had strings of five-point mental lapses, which hurt us a lot.

On Belgium: They’re strong. They’re good. They fought really hard. One team’s going to come out on top and the other team’s not going to. That’s the way it went today.

This was a once in a lifetime chance for me. It was very special. I appreciate everything that everybody’s done, and I enjoyed being with the team and learning about a totally different culture. It was very special to me.

Tags: 2010 U.S. Girls' Youth Olympic Team, 2010 Youth Olympic Games, Katie Mitchell, Liz McMahon, Rod Wilde, Samantha Cash, YOG, youth, Youth Olympic Games, Youth Olympics