Win Streak Extended to Eight Straight, Tied for League Lead

PROVO -- Winning its eighth straight match, the fourth-ranked BYU men's volleyball team climbed in to a tie with league leading Hawaii on Saturday after sweeping No. 11 Stanford for the second straight night, 38-36, 30-28, 30-25.

With the win, the Cougars, who have not lost a single game over a four-match period, improve to 9-3 overall on the season and 7-1 in MPSF action. The Cardinal dropped to 5-11 overall and 3-9 in league play.

"Hopefully this means we're getting better," BYU head coach Tom Peterson said. "This was a good test for us. We did a couple things well tonight. We passed well and we hit well. Serving is just, well, if we serve like we did tonight when we go to Irvine, we won't win.

The Cougars hit .484 on the night, connecting on a three game season-high 74 kills on 124 attempts. BYU started the match on a blistering pace, racking up 31 kills on 43 attempts (.605) with just five errors.

Serving, however, was another matter. The Cougars tallied 23 service errors on the night, including 13 in the first game.

"If we would have kept up the pace in game one, I think we would have set an NCAA record," Peterson said. "But then we had only three errors in game two and then seven in the last game. It's driving me nuts. It drove the crowd nuts in game one. I think the crowd started cheering every time we made a serve in that first game.

In game one, the Cougars took a 30-29 lead after Fernando Pesso recorded his ninth of 10 kills in the game. BYU then committed four straight service errors on game-point opportunities, extending the game through a log jam at 33 each. The two teams continued to trade points through 36-36 when the Cougars took advantage of a Stanford error to claim a 37-36 lead. Jonathan Alleman ended the game with his team-leading 10th kill in the game. Alleman hit a sizzling .750, connection on 10-of-12 attempts with just one error.

In game two, the Cougars fell behind early, but a quick rally gave BYU a 19-17 lead after Alleman picked up his only block of the night. BYU grabbed a three-point advantage at 25-22 on a Cardinal attack error, but Stanford continued to fight back. Pessoa picked up one of his six kills in the game to give the Cougars a 29-27 lead. After a BYU ball handling error and a Stanford timeout, Pessoa notched another of his match-high 20 kills to give the Cougars a 30-28 victory.

In game three, Stanford jumped out to an 11-7 lead, but the Cougars pulled off one of the longest runs of the season. Alleman kicked off an 8-0 run with back-to-back kills, and tied the game at 11-11 with his third straight kill. Joe Hillman got in to the thick of things, connecting on one of his 18 kills on the night to give BYU the 12-11 lead, which the Cougars would never give up. David Vogel's kill ended the BYU scoring streak and cut the lead to 15-12. After the two teams traded serves, BYU took a four-point lead at 28-24 when Victor Batista recorded his only block of the match. He followed that up with a kill, giving BYU a 29-24 lead. Two serves later, Alleman ended the match with his 17th kill of the night.

"After we fell behind in game three, we started to transition very well," Peterson said. "We dug a few balls, we funneled the ball through our defense and we were able to get points out of our transition play. I thought we were due when we started to make a run. Maybe that's the bottom line. I thought we were due."

Pessoa led the Cougars with 20 kills on the night, committing just two errors on 27 attempts. Hillman racked up 18 kills on 27 attempts without a single error. Alleman contributed 17 kills, while Aaron Ferre, who was making only his second career started chipped in 10 kills. William Clayton tallied a team-high 12 kills for the Cardinal while Vogel added 10 kills.

Having completed a four-match home stand, the Cougars will next travel to UC Irvine on Thursday, Feb. 26 and Saturday, Feb. 28.

For detailed boxscore, click the pdf link above.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                        2004 BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
   Stanford University vs BRIGHAM YOUNG (Feb 21, 2004 at Brigham Young Univ.)
    Stanford University    |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  BUELL, Craig........  3|  6   1  14  .357|  0|  0   0|  1|  1| 0  3  1|  0|   7.5
 2  AHLFELDT, Chris.....  3|  3   2  11  .091|  1|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   3.5
 5  VOGEL, David........  3| 10   6  25  .160|  5|  1   3|  1|  6| 0  0  1|  0|  11.0
 7  CLAYTON, William....  3| 12   1  16  .688|  1|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|  12.5
 17 HANSEN, Kevin.......  3|  6   1  11  .455| 34|  2   2|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  0|   8.0
 18 BOMHACK, Patrick....  3|  8   0  18  .444|  0|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  3  1|  0|   9.5
 3  MANOV, Nick.........  3|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  1|  0|   0.0
 9  JACOBS, Jeremy......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  9| 0  0  0|  1|   0.0
 11 LINDBERG, Brian.....  3|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 45  11  97  .351| 41|  3   9|  3| 30| 0  8  4|  1|  52.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  2  30  .500   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  16  4  37  .324   Stanford University. 36 28 25  5-11,3-9 MPSF
   3  12  5  30  .233   BRIGHAM YOUNG....... 38 30 30  9-3,7-1 MPSF
    BRIGHAM YOUNG          |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  MORENO, Carlos......  3|  3   2   6  .167| 64|  1   7|  0|  7| 0  1  1|  2|   4.5
 6  FERRE, Aaron........  3| 10   1  15  .600|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 1  2  0|  0|  12.0
 11 HILLMAN, Joe........  3| 18   0  27  .667|  1|  1   3|  0|  5| 0  0  0|  0|  19.0
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  3| 17   4  30  .433|  3|  0   5|  1|  4| 0  1  1|  0|  17.5
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  3| 20   2  27  .667|  1|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  0  0|  0|  20.0
 18 BATISTA, Victor.....  3|  6   5  19  .053|  0|  1   4|  0|  3| 1  0  2|  2|   8.0
 8  HYTE, David.........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 OLMSTEAD, Shawn.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  2|  8| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 20 EVANS, TAYLOR.......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 74  14 124  .484| 70|  3  23|  3| 34| 2  4  4|  4|  81.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  31  5  43  .605   Site: Brigham Young Univ. (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  22  5  44  .386   Date: Feb 21, 2004   Attend: 1711   Time: 1H 50M
   3  21  4  37  .459   Referees: TOM GIVEN, LES CALLES

PROVO -- After a week off, the fourth-ranked BYU men's volleyball (7-3, 5-1 MPSF) host No. 11 Stanford (5-9, 3-7 MPSF) in a conference match-up, beginning at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Smith Fieldhouse. Game time on Saturday has been changed from 8:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. due to television broadcast.

Friday's match will be broadcast on KBYU locally, starting at 7 p.m., and on BYU-TV nationally. College Sports TV will televise Saturday's match against Stanford at 7 p.m. CSTV can be found on DirecTV, channel 610.

"Stanford is a good team," head coach Tom Peterson said. "We have to win these matches at home to stay competitive in the conference.

The Cougars swept 12-ranked Pacific on both nights, 3-0 (30-25, 30-25, 30-23) on Feb. 6 and 3-0 (30-27, 30-22, 30-27) on Feb. 7 to stretch their winning streak to six. BYU blocked the Tigers on Feb. 7 in a match lasting only an hour and a half. With the win, BYU extends its overall record over Pacific to 13-4 and 9-0 at home.

The Cougars had the advantage over the Tigers, with 10 blocks to four and hitting .386 to Pacific's .196 percentage. BYU only had one player in double-digit kills, but the team spread the offense around with four players recording eight kills each. Leading the Cougars was All-American Jonathan Alleman with 11 kills, hitting .562 and committing only two errors.

Alleman also led the Cougars with 16 kills on 21 attempts (.667) on Feb. 6, while Fernando Pessoa, the MPSF Player of the Week for Feb. 2-6, recorded his seventh straight double-digit performance with 12 kills. Alleman led all scorers with 18 points, followed by Pessoa with 15. Victor Batista had six kills, three assisted blocks and a team-leading three aces.

The match up with Stanford will be the 23th meeting between the two teams, as BYU leads the series 14-8 overall, including 6-2 in Provo. Last season, the Cougars took both matches at Stanford in five games, winning first two matches of the 2003 season.

"Stanford is a big name school in volleyball and we cannot take them lightly," Peterson said. We'll need to minimize our mistakes and keep up our defense and blocking."

The Cardinal fell to the No. 2 Hawai'i, 3-0 Saturday night in Maples Pavilion. Stanford now stands at 5-9 on the season and 3-7 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play. With the win, the Warriors improve to 8-2 overall and 5-1 in MPSF play. The University of Hawai'i proved why it is the No. 2 men's volleyball team in the country by also defeating Stanford, 3-0 on Friday.

For Friday's match, junior outsider hitter David Vogel led the Cardinal with eight kills, while redshirt junior Pat Bomhack added seven. Sophomore outside hitter Ben Reddy and junior middle blocker Craig Buell each added four kills.

On Saturday, Buell paced Stanford with 6-of-9 kills with no errors and redshirt junior setter Kevin Hansen added 5-of-9 kills with no errors. Redshirt sophomore William Clayton contributed six kills and Reddy paced the Cardinal with three kills. Vogel, Bomhack and Buell each added two kills in the game.