Dec. 1, 2005

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Dayton head coach Tim Horsmon
"We played a great team obviously. Notre Dame had a super year but I thought we really competed and really showed up tonight. I'm proud of our effort."

"We've got great kids, we're going to get better. I like the makeup of our team. If we do the things we need to do in the off-season, then the next year or two we're building something and have a chance to be great."

Dayton senior setter Nicole Schott
"I think it [coming back from two games down] showed our character as a team, like coach preaches every day in practice. We knew we could do it, we knew we could compete with them tonight. I'm disappointed in how it resulted, of course, but we did everything we could and it didn't go our way."

Dayton junior middle blocker Faye Barhorst
"It's right up our alley to compete, and I think we showed that. But I'm still hungry, and I think every other player out there tonight after that finish could probably say the same thing."

Dayton freshman right side / outside hitter Kortney Norris

"We practice 5th games every day in practice, and at the beginning of the year we really struggled with the fifth game, but by the end of the year we had it down. And I think when we came out and we were down we knew we could come back, and we were all about not playing tentative. ... It is about playing to win, not playing not to lose."

Notre Dame head coach Debbie Brown
"It was a battle. They played very well. We truly are just really happy to still be playing. We were tested and pushed as far as we could be. This time of year, the most important thing is winning and that's what we managed to do."

"I don't know if at 13-13 it mattered what court we were on. At that point you just have to play. I wasn't aware of the crowd, Dayton's band, our band, cheerleaders, anything. You're just locked into the next play. I think we are comfortable playing at home and that's a good thing. I'm glad we were here, but I honestly think at that point it didn't matter where we were."

"We sputtered down the stretch. The beginning of game five was the most fun we had all night. We were relaxed, we were playing well, we were having fun. We got it to 6-1 and then as they started to sneak back in, we started to get tense again. We just have to allow ourselves to have fun and enjoy the game. That's when we play the best. We don't have to have a huge lead to do that because we've played against teams where it's been a battle back and forth. We just didn't find that rhythm tonight."

Notre Dame senior libero Meg Henican
On the mindset of the team going into game five...

"We were ready to go. We looked each other in the eyes and said, `This is it. We take it here and that is the only option.' We were just going to play one 15-point game, just playing our game. We were ready to execute at a high level. This team has a lot of fighters."

"We did what we had to in the end. It was enough. Our strength is that we are a team and when we had to we pulled together. I don't know that we executed our game how we should and how we can."

Notre Dame senior middle blocker Lauren Brewster

"We had our highs and lows. There were times when we were playing like we should and there were times where we were fighting through. Obviously in five games there has to be fighting."

Notre Dame sophomore outside hitter Adrianna Stasiuk

"[We were tense] because the season's on the line. For any team, no matter what you're ranked, either the season is going to go on or it's going to end. I don't know if it was really tense. They played really well, but we just kept fighting."