LOS -- No. 4 BYU fell to No. 6 UCLA in Pauley Pavilion Friday night as the hot-hitting Bruins earned a 40-38, 30-21, 30-24 victory.

Providing some payback for a 3-2 loss to BYU on Jan. 7 in Santa Barbara, the Bruins sizzled on offense to sweep the Cougars in the first of two matches between the two teams this weekend in Westwood.

Kevin Sagers had 14 kills to pace BYU with Robb Stowell and Andrew Stewart adding 12 and 11, respectively. Each of the three Cougar attackers hit over .300—led by Stowell’s .370 success rate—but the nearly flawless performance on the other side of the net proved too much for BYU on this particular night.

Jack Polales led UCLA with 19 kills on 33 attacks to hit .545 while Dylan Bowermaster was a nearly perfect 14-of-16 to hit .750 while recording 14 scoring swings.

BYU hit a respectable .252 as a team but UCLA attacked at an impressive .459 rate to fuel its victory.

After UCLA edged BYU in a first-set thriller, the Bruins stayed in control the rest of the way to keep the Cougars from claiming at least one set in a match for the first time this season.

The first set proved to be the longest this year in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The Bruins eventually triumphed by a 40-38 tally in a back-and-forth finish that saw BYU have six set-point opportunities and the Bruins four before finally getting the winning score. The Cougars hit .319 for the set but the Bruins were even hotter at .388.

UCLA started the first set strong, jumping out to an early 5-1 lead before the Cougars battled back and found their rhythm. BYU eventually evened the tally at 18-18 after back-to-back kills by Sagers. The battle remained close the rest of the way before the Bruins got consecutive points to break a 38-38 tie to earn the victory.

The Bruins again started quickly in the second set, scoring the first four points to match their largest lead of set one. Facing a 15-9 deficit, BYU put together a 6-0 run to erase UCLA’s advantage at the mid-point of the set. The Bruins, however, scored the next four points and never looked back to take a 2-0 lead in the match with a 30-21 win in the second set.

Not letting UCLA jump out to a quick start for a third straight set, Jeff Robinson put down three early kills after entering the match for the first time to help BYU take its first two-point advantage of the night at 3-1. The momentum, however, was short-lived as the Bruins continued their exceptional play to claim the lead at 5-4. UCLA never trailed again the rest of the way to complete the sweep with a 30-24 finish.

With the loss, BYU falls to 5-3 on the year and 3-2 in the MPSF, while UCLA improves to 4-4 overall and 3-2 in league play. The Cougars face the host Bruins again on Saturday at 7 p.m. PT in Pauley Pavilion.

Volleyball Box Score
                            The Automated ScoreBook
                    #4 BYU vs #6 UCLA (Jan 29, 2010 at UCLA)
   BYU                    |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
## Name                 SP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3  CHILTON, Reed.......  3|  0   0   2  .000| 19|  1   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
5  LAVAJA, Russell.....  3|  3   1   8  .250|  2|  0   3|  0|  2| 0  3  0|  0|   4.5
11 SAGERS, Kevin.......  3| 14   5  27  .333|  0|  0   1|  1|  5| 0  2  0|  0|  15.0
13 STOWELL, Robb.......  3| 12   2  27  .370|  2|  0   4|  0|  5| 0  3  3|  0|  13.5
15 STEWART, Andrew.....  3| 11   4  23  .304|  0|  0   1|  1|  2| 1  0  0|  0|  12.0
17 TAVANA, Futi........  2|  2   3   8 -.125|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   2.5
1  TUTTLE, Kent........  3|  1   2   6 -.167|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
4  SILVA, Joel.........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  9| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
7  ROBINSON, Jeff......  1|  3   2   5  .200|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   3.0
9  SOUZA, Otavio.......  1|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
10 TAYLOR, Mat.........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  2|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
14 PEREZ, Yamil........  3|  0   0   0  .000| 17|  1   1|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  1|   1.0
   TEAM................   |                 |   |       |  2|   |        |   |   0.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Totals..............  3| 46  19 107  .252| 41|  2  12|  6| 28| 1  9  3|  1|  53.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER SET                                            TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 5.5
 Set   K  E  TA   Pct Sideout Pct
   1  22  7  47  .319  27-39  69%   SET SCORES                1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  10  7  28  .107  15-30  50%   BYU................. (0) 38 21 24  5-3 (3-2)
   3  14  5  32  .281  19-29  65%   UCLA................ (3) 40 30 30  4-4 (3-2)
   UCLA                   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
## Name                 SP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7  Garrett Muagututia..  3| 13   5  31  .258|  4|  2   2|  0|  5| 1  0  0|  0|  16.0
14 Jack Polales........  3| 19   1  33  .545|  0|  0   3|  0|  2| 0  4  0|  0|  21.0
17 Dylan Bowermaster...  3| 14   2  16  .750|  1|  2   6|  0|  7| 0  2  0|  0|  17.0
18 Thomas Amberg.......  3|  5   0   9  .556|  0|  1   3|  0|  0| 0  4  0|  0|   8.0
25 Kevin Ker...........  3|  2   0   3  .667| 52|  0   2|  0|  6| 0  4  1|  0|   4.0
28 Nick Vogel..........  3|  8   4  16  .250|  0|  1   5|  0|  1| 0  6  0|  0|  12.0
3  Tom Hastings........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  8| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
4  Chen Levitan........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
8  Kyle Caldwell.......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
36 Jonathan Bridgeman..  1|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
   TEAM................   |                 |   |       |  1|   |        |   |   0.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Totals..............  3| 62  12 109  .459| 58|  6  23|  2| 29| 1 20  1|  0|  79.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER SET                                            TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.0
 Set   K  E  TA   Pct Sideout Pct
   1  25  6  49  .388  28-39  71%   Site: UCLA (Pauley Pavilion)
   2  18  4  26  .538  15-21  71%   Date: Jan 29, 2010   Attend: 1075   Time: 1:45
   3  19  2  34  .500  20-25  80%   Referees: Bob Oshita, Robert Okamura
                                         1   2   3 Total
                        Tie scores      14   1   4    19
                        Lead changes     6   0   2     8

Match Outlook

The No. 4 BYU men’s volleyball team (5-2, 3-1 MPSF) heads out on its first Mountain Pacific Sports Federation road trip to take on No. 6 UCLA (3-4, 2-2 MPSF) for a two-match series this weekend. This will mark the second and third meetings between the two teams this season, as they previously met in the second round of the UC Santa Barbara Invitational. BYU defeated UCLA, 3-2, in that match on Jan. 7.

The Bruins are coming off an upset sweep over then-No. 2 Cal State Northridge on Jan. 23. Playing in a hostile environment, UCLA handed the Matadors their first loss of the 2010 season.

Series Info

Although the Bruins lead the all-time series against the Cougars, BYU is 12-6 against UCLA since the beginning of the 2001 National Championship season. A weekend sweep for either team has been hard to come by in Los Angeles, with each series ending in a split dating back to 2002. Twenty-four of the 44 total meetings between BYU and UCLA have resulted in sweeps, while 12 have gone to four sets and only eight have reached the five-set mark. The two teams split two matches played in Provo last season.

Match Coverage

Live stats are available at the UCLA men’s volleyball schedule page at www.uclabruins.com. Gametracker can be launched by clicking on the link next to the appropriate game on the schedule.

Darren Preston will call the audio play-by-play on www.uclabruins.com.

Coming Off...

The Cougars are coming off a weekend split against No. 3 Stanford. 4,024 fans were in attendance on Friday as BYU handed the Cardinal its first loss of the season. Those in attendance didn’t go home disappointed as they saw some dominating performances from the Cougars. Senior outside hitter Andrew Stewart knocked down 21 kills, one short of his career high, and picked up 12 digs to give him the fifth double-double of his career. Also recording double-digit kills for BYU were Robb Stowell and Futi Tavana with 15 and 11, respectively. Despite suffering a 3-1 loss on Saturday, BYU was led by Stowell, who tied his career high of 22 kills. Three other Cougars recorded double-digit kills, including Stewart with 18, Tavana with 16 and Russell Lavaja with 15. Tavana and Lavaja both earned new career highs. Reed Chilton set a career-high 69 assists.