Utes Top Cougars in Hard Fought Match

SALT LAKE -- An injury riddled BYU women's volleyball team fought hard, but lost to instate and Mountain West Conference rival No. 19 Utah 24-30, 28-30, 24-30 Friday night at Crimson Court. The loss drops the Cougars to 7-12, 1-2 MWC, while the Utes improve to 14-4, 4-1.

"I thought we did a lot of good things tonight," BYU coach Karen Lamb said. "We competed extremely hard and kept improving as a team."

Both teams came out ready to attack in the first game as Kim Turner and Kim Wilson traded kills to tie the game at 1-1. BYU struggled with its serve early on, though, as Erin Webb and Allison Larson missed serves to put the Cougars down 2-4. Sahara Castillo came in to serve with BYU trailing 3-5, and promptly led the Cougars on a 4-0 run to give BYU its largest lead of the game. BYU's lead was short-lived, however, and both team traded points to 10-10. Utah then went on a decisive 6-0 run on the strength of staunch team blocking. Down the stretch, BYU's serving was its Achilles heel as it missed six in the game to Utah's two. The Utes extended their lead to as many as nine at 23-14 on a backside kill by Lyndsey Phillips as it cruised in taking the first game on a kill by Phillips.

In game two, the Utes jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead before the Cougars regained their composure to make the score 5-6 on a block by Karina Puikkonen and Erin Webb, BYU's first block of the match. The game belonged to Utah's Sylva Strzinkova and Sabine Schulz, however, as Strzinkova led the Utes in game two with 20 attempts and Schulz contributed a game-high eight kills on 11 attempts. Utah reeled off a 7-0 run to go up 17-10, but BYU chipped away and Allison Larson capped a 4-0 Cougar run with a kill to put BYU within one at 23-24, but that is as close as the Cougars would get as Strzinkova put the game away with a kill.

In game three, BYU took a 3-2 lead and led by as many as three as Puikkonen and Carrie Bowers blocked Phillips to put the Cougars up 13-10. Utah then went on a 5-0 run to take a 15-13 lead and the Utes would not look back. Utah stretched its lead to as many as five at 28-23 on a Strzinkova kill before taking the match.

"We are a little outmatched right now," Lamb said. "We don't make any excuses, though. We have injuries and we are inexperienced, but that's just the way it is and we can't do anything about it. What we can do is go out, compete, and play hard, which we did tonight."

April Varner continues her consistent play of late, as she again led BYU in kills with 13. Varner also had seven digs, three blocks and one service ace while hitting .235.

"April is really starting to play well," Lamb said. "She's gaining confidence and playing consistently."

Carrie Bowers had 10 kills to go with a team-high five blocks. Overall, BYU was outhit .241 to .098 and was outblocked 17.0-7.0 on the night.

Utah was led by Sylva Strzinkova who had a match-high 15 kills. Sabine Schulz had a double-double with 12 kills and 12 digs and a match-high .632 attack percentage.

BYU will continue MWC play and conclude its four-match road trip as it travels to play Colorado State, Oct. 18, and Wyoming, Oct. 19.

                              Volleyball Box Score
           BYU Cougars vs Utah (Oct 11, 2002 at Salt Lake City, Utah)
    BYU Cougars            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2  PUIKKONEN, Karina...  3|  4   4  13  .000| 34|  2   0|  0|  6| 0  3  1|  0
 3  VARNER, April.......  3| 13   5  34  .235|  0|  1   1|  1|  7| 0  3  1|  0
 7  LARSON, Allison.....  3|  6   5  18  .056|  0|  0   4|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 8  BOWERS, Carrie......  3| 10   5  24  .208|  2|  1   2|  0|  1| 1  4  0|  0
 10 WEBB, Erin..........  3|  3   1  10  .200|  0|  0   2|  0|  1| 0  2  1|  0
 15 WILSON, Kimberly....  3|  6   8  29 -.069|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 5  CASTILLO, Sahara....  3|  0   0   1  .000|  1|  1   3|  2|  8| 0  0  0|  0
 12 CRABBE, Uila........  3|  0   1   2 -.500|  0|  0   0|  0|  7| 0  0  0|  0
 17 MAHAFFEY, Michelle..  3|  0   0   1  .000|  2|  1   0|  0|  4| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 42  29 132  .098| 39|  6  12|  3| 35| 1 12  3|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  14  7  41  .171   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  15 10  51  .098   BYU Cougars......... 24 28 24  7-12, 1-2 MWC
   3  13 12  40  .025   Utah................ 30 30 30  14-4, 4-1 MWC
    Utah                   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  BEAL, Brenda........  3|  2   4  12 -.167|  0|  0   2|  0|  3| 1  7  2|  0
 6  KARTCHNER, Kelsie...  3|  0   0   4  .000| 40|  0   2|  0|  2| 0  3  2|  1
 10 STRZINKOVA, Sylva...  3| 15   7  39  .205|  0|  3   0|  1|  7| 1  4  0|  0
 14 SCHULZ, Sabine......  3| 12   0  19  .632|  0|  0   0|  2| 12| 0  2  0|  0
 15 TURNER, Kim.........  3|  9   4  18  .278|  0|  0   2|  3|  8| 0  5  0|  0
 16 PHILLIPS, Lyndsey...  3|  7   4  13  .231|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 1  5  1|  0
 2  MORRILL, Jackie.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0| 13| 0  0  0|  0
 4  HUNDLEY, Shelly.....  1|  1   1   3  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  2  1|  0
 8  NEUMEIER, Tracy.....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 17 HORNER, Taryn.......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 46  20 108  .241| 43|  3   7|  6| 48| 3 28  6|  1
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 17.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  16  7  35  .257   Site: Salt Lake City, Utah (Crimson Court)
   2  18  8  46  .217   Date: Oct 11, 2002   Attend: 1382   Time: 1:29
   3  12  5  27  .259   Referees: Ken Taylor, Tom Given, Quinnette Dunn

PROVO -- It will be instate rivalry week for the BYU women's volleyball team as it gets set to play at Utah State Tuesday and No. 20 Utah Friday. The Cougars are currently 7-10 overall and 2-2 in Mountain West Conference play.

The Cougars are coming off a weekend split of conference matches at home as they were downed by Air Force, but rebounded to sweep New Mexico.

Senior rightside hitter Allison Larson is growing more comfortable in her new position and ranks eighth in the MWC with 3.33 kills per game, while ranking ninth in attack percentage at .324. Last week she led the Cougars in each match with 13 kills apiece and averaged 3.71 kpg while hitting .380.

Sophomore Lindsey Metcalf has seen action as a rightside hitter and an outside hitter this season, but with sudden injuries to the lineup, she has been pressed into service as a middle blocker. While still learning a new position, Metcalf picked up a career-high 17 blocks in her second match at the position (Sept. 28 vs. UNLV). Since then she has led BYU in blocking in each match. Her 1.93 bpg average is tops in the MWC.

Redshirt freshman middle blocker Lexi Brown continues to be sidelined by a torn ACL and junior transfer Laura Nielsen is still out with a broken foot. As a result of injuries and position switching, true freshman Kim Wilson has been elevated to start at outside hitter. Wilson led the team in attempts (25) versus New Mexico while racking up 11 kills on a career-high .360 hitting. She narrowly missed her first career double-double as she had nine digs.

The Cougars will continue their sojourn through a demanding schedule. Utah will be the fifth opponent the Cougars will face that is currently ranked in the USA Today/AVCA Coaches Top 25 Poll (Other teams include No. 1 USC, No. 3 Florida, No. 16 Washington State and No. 25 Texas A&M.

LOOKING AT UTAH

Utah (13-4, 3-1 MWC) is in the midst of one its most anticipated seasons in history. After peaking at No. 8, the highest ranking in school history earlier this year, the Utes are currently ranked 20th. The Utes have not lost consecutive matches this season and are a perfect 8-0 at home. Last week the Utes picked up a pair of conference wins by downing New Mexico and Air Force at home.

Utah is led by Kim Turner who averages 3.73 kpg and 1.53 bpg, and Sylva Strzinkova who averages 3.97 kpg and 2.51 dpg. Turner tied a season and career-high with 22 kills in the Utes win over the Lobos. For her efforts Turner was named the Mountain West Conference Player of the Week for the second time this season and sixth time overall. The Cougars hold a 61-9 all-time edge over the Utes, but Utah has taken the last two meetings from BYU.

LOOKING AT UTAH STATE

With only two starters returning from last year's 20-11 team, the Aggies are struggling to find a rhythm, but have posed a difficult challenge for the Cougars in recent years. Utah State (6-8) enters its match-up with BYU having lost five of its last six matches, and have been swept three times in that span. Two of the losses, though, have come at the hands of Big West Conference opponents No. 6 Long Beach State and No. 7 UC Santa Barbara.

The Aggies were swept twice in conference play last week to No. 7 UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly. Utah State returns home where it is winless this season (0-2). The Cougars hold a 45-11 all-time advantage over the Aggies, but BYU was 0-2 versus Utah State last year, including a season-ending loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Cougars will play the Aggies Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum and will play the Utes Friday at 7 p.m. on Crimson Court.