Win Streak Extended to 11 Straight

PROVO -- The third-ranked BYU men's volleyball team defeated No. 6 UC Santa Barbara on Friday, 30-26, 30-26, 30-21, extending its nation-leading win streak to 11 straight matches. With the victory, the Cougars improve to 12-3 overall and maintain their lead in the MPSF standings with a 10-1 league record.

"It's hard to say how good we are right now," BYU head coach Tom Peterson said. "The jury is still out. We're a good team, but I don't know if we can say we're a really good team yet. I want our team to be more consistent and to make fewer mistakes. If we can cut down on our mistakes, I think we can be a really good team."

Friday's win marks the fifth straight 3-0 victory for the Cougars at home. BYU has not lost a single game in the Smith Fieldhouse since January 17 against Cal State Northridge.

Seniors Jonathan Alleman and Fernando Pessoa paced the BYU offense with 12 kills each, marking the 12th double-digit total of the season for both players.

After an injury sidelined him for the first 11 matches of the season, middle blocker Michael Burke had a strong performance on Friday, totaling 10 kills and six blocks in just his third appearance of the season. Burke hit a blistering .714 at the net, connecting on 10-of-14 attempts.

Setter Carlos Moreno chalked up 39 assists on 67 attempts and was credited with four digs, two kills and a block.

In game one, the Gauchos jumped out to a six-point lead after a 13-3 run. The Cougars fought back and eventually tied the score at 24-24 when Alleman connected on one of only three kills in the game. After trading serves through a 25-25 tie, the Cougars went on a 6-1 run to end game one. Pessoa was credited with his game-high fifth kill to give BYU the 30-26 victory.

"You don't come back from six-points down very often," Peterson said. "We practice for situations like that, but at this level you're not going to be able to change things by motivation. One of our weaknesses is that we go on runs both ways, and we start games slow sometimes. I would really like to improve our consistency.:

In game two, the two teams traded serves through a 16-16 tie. A Pessoa kill gave the Cougars a 17-16 lead and they never looked back. Later, a UCSB attack error gave BYU a four-point lead at 24-20 and the Cougars held to that four-point advantage the rest of the way, picking up the 30-26 victory.

In the final game of the match, after the Cougars scored the first point, they never trailed the rest of the way. BYU built a 15-8 advantage after a UCSB attack error. That seven-point lead turned in to a match-high nine-point spread after Pessoa picked up his third kill of the game. With the Cougars holding a 29-21 advantage, USCB's Dane Jensen was called for a ball handling error to give BYU the 30-21 victory in the final game.

UC Santa Barbara's Nate Wack led the Gauchos with 10 kills, while Justin Adams was credited with a match-high seven blocks on the night.

The two teams will square off again on Saturday in the Smith Fieldhouse beginning at 7 p.m. (MT).

"We need to watch out for them tomorrow night," Peterson said. "They're a team that can get out on a roll and be hard to stop."

To view the detailed boxscore, click the pdf version link above.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                        2004 BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
    UC Santa Barbara vs BRIGHAM YOUNG (Mar 05, 2004 at Brigham Young Univ.)
    UC Santa Barbara       |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4  BERMAN, Bryan.......  3|  0   0   0  .000| 31|  2   3|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  1|   3.0
 5  NELSON, Mike........  2|  7   3  17  .235|  0|  0   3|  0|  2| 0  3  0|  0|   8.5
 13 WACK, Nate..........  3| 10   3  14  .500|  0|  1   3|  1|  5| 0  2  1|  0|  12.0
 15 WIENS, Jake.........  3|  5   8  21 -.143|  0|  1   3|  2|  3| 0  1  0|  0|   6.5
 25 KENNEDY, Michael....  3|  9   1  14  .571|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  1  1|  0|   9.5
 33 ADAMS, Justin.......  3|  5   2  12  .250|  0|  0   0|  0|  3| 0  7  0|  0|   8.5
 1  KOWALSKI, Bart......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  JENSEN, Dane........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  6|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  2|   0.0
 10 ULFERS, Adam........  2|  4   5  11 -.091|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   4.5
 14 PARRA, Alejandro....  2|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 19 MANSFIELD, Aaron....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 40  22  90  .200| 37|  4  15|  4| 17| 0 17  2|  3|  52.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 8.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  14  9  32  .156   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  13  6  29  .241   UC Santa Barbara.... 26 26 21  10-7, 6-6
   3  13  7  29  .207   BRIGHAM YOUNG....... 30 30 30  12-3, 10-1
    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
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  BURKE, Michael......  3| 10   0  14  .714|  1|  1   2|  0|  1| 1  5  0|  0|  14.5
 5  MORENO, Carlos......  3|  2   0   3  .667| 39|  0   0|  0|  4| 1  0  0|  1|   3.0
 11 HILLMAN, Joe........  3|  4   2   9  .222|  0|  0   1|  0|  5| 0  3  1|  0|   5.5
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  3| 12   5  20  .350|  1|  2   2|  1|  6| 0  1  0|  0|  14.5
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  3| 12   6  23  .261|  1|  0   2|  2|  5| 0  4  1|  0|  14.0
 18 BATISTA, Victor.....  3|  6   1  10  .500|  0|  0   4|  0|  1| 0  3  1|  0|   7.5
 2  RANGEL, Steffin.....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 10 CARPENTER, Cory.....  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   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 OLMSTEAD, Shawn.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  4| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 20 EVANS, TAYLOR.......  1|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  1   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 46  14  80  .400| 42|  4  12|  4| 26| 2 16  3|  1|  60.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 10.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  16  7  30  .300   Site: Brigham Young Univ. (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  17  6  29  .379   Date: Mar 05, 2004   Attend: 2719   Time: 1 h 36 m
   3  13  1  21  .571   Referees: Tom Given, Les Calles

PROVO -- After sweeping UC Irvine both nights for a ten-match winning streak, the No. 3-ranked BYU men's volleyball team will take on No. 6-ranked UC Santa Barbara at home on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. Cougar Club members will receive half-priced discounts with membership cards for Friday's Western Night.

Securing the top spot in conference, the Cougars move ahead Hawai`i with the best record in the league, 9-1. BYU (11-3 overall) also moved up from fourth place to third place in the USA Today/AVCA Top 15 Coaches' Poll.

"We have to put together a whole game against Santa Barbara," head coach Tom Peterson said. "They beat No. 3 Long Beach State, so they can get on fire quickly and surprise people."

The match up this weekend will be the 28th meeting between the two teams, as BYU leads the series 15-13 overall, including 9-5 in Provo. Last season, the Cougars split with the Gauchos, winning the first match 3-0 on Valentine's Day but falling in three games the day after.

During last week, BYU traveled to UC Irvine and came back with two wins, both in four games. After losing the first game, the Cougars came back to dominate ninth-ranked UC Irvine 3-1, extending its winning streak to ten matches. The game scores for the match were 26-30, 30-24, 30-21, 30-26.

Since the NCAA adopted rally scoring, this ten-match winning streak ties the longest streak from 2001 when the Cougars won the National Championship. The Anteaters dropped to 7-11 overall, 3-8 in league play.

Coming back from a preseason shoulder injury, junior Mike Burke picked up where he left off in his first match, claiming 15 kills in 19 attempts and a career-high .737 percentage. He also added a match-high six blocks to help BYU to 11.5 total team blocks. Last season Burke earned All-MPSF Honorable Mention honors and led the Cougars with 155 total blocks and 1.41 blocks per game.

"Mike played a great match and blocked the ball at the right times," Peterson said. "To have him come back sooner than expected and to play a whole match is great for us since Chris is out for a couple of weeks."

BYU picked up the first win over the UCI on Wednesday of last week, 3-1 (30-23, 23-30, 30-24, 30-26). The Cougars started game one with a scorching .706 percentage, hitting 13 of 17 attempts with only one attack error.

Defense was a key for the team, racking up 31 digs and 11.5 total blocks compared with UCI's eight blocks and 22 digs. BYU made up some ground on defense when the team was struggling with serving. The Cougars missed 23 serves on the night with nine coming in the first game.

"We having been struggling on serving but we are capable of serving well," Peterson said. "We just can't dwell on previous bad serves."

Friday's match will feature Western Night, where fans can wear their western garb and receive a free prize from BYU Athletics. In addition, all Cougar Club members and their immediate family will receive half-priced discounts with a membership card. Chamber of Commerce members can contact Emily Deans or Jeff Davis in Marketing to receive special group rates also on Friday night.

Next week the Cougars will complete their four-match home stand against Pepperdine, Mar. 12-13 at 7 p.m. Saturday's match will be broadcast on KBYU and BYUTV.