No. 12 Arizona Ends BYU Season

PROVO -- In its season-finale the BYU women's volleyball team dropped a closely contested battle to No. 12 Arizona 3-1 (28-30, 30-25, 30-25, 30-27) Friday night in the Smith Fieldhouse. The loss drops the Cougars to 14-19, while the Wildcats improve to 17-10.

"I did think we had chances to make plays and win tonight," BYU coach Karen Lamb said. "We just didn't capitalize when we needed to."

Senior's Allison Larson and Michelle Mahaffey were honored before the match on Senior Night, and the Cougars started the match aggressively in taking on its sixth ranked team of the season.

Arizona took a quick 5-1 lead in the first game, before BYU would close the gap to 7-9 on a Lindsey Metcalf kill. The Cougars then reeled off a 6-0 run to take the game's largest lead at 13-9, capped by a Laura Nielsen ace. After a Bre Ladd service error put the Cougars up 14-11, the Wildcats would go on a 6-2 run to retake the lead at 17-16, with the last three points coming off BYU attack errors. The teams would then trade sideouts until Karina Puikkonen and Nielsen ended the game with back-to-back kills.

Game two was led by Arizona from start to finish, and the Wildcats would lead by as many as five points in the early going. BYU chipped away at the Arizona lead, however, and tied the game at 19-19 on a Lisa Rutledge attack error. The Wildcats quickly regained control of the game on a kill by Ladd and a pair of hitting errors by Nielsen. From there Arizona pulled away for the win and capped the game with a pair of aces by Shannon Torregrosa.

BYU took early control of the third game and built a four-point lead (14-11) forcing Arizona into a timeout. Out of the break, Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Kim Glass took over the game as she notched six of her seven kills in the game after the timeout. Glass led the Wildcats on a 6-2 run, in which she contributed three kills, to give Arizona a 17-16 lead. Kimberly Wilson led the Cougars with four kills in the game, but it wasn't enough as Arizona out-hit BYU .324 to .098 in the game.

In the final game Glass and Rutledge led the Wildcats with six kills each, but BYU would hold the lead for most of the game on the strength of strong team serving. After the game was tied at 15-15, BYU would go up 18-15 on a pair of kills by Nielsen and a kill by Metcalf. Arizona slowly whittled the Cougar lead and tied the game at 26-26. After a Ladd hitting error put the Cougars up 27-26, the Wildcats closed out the match with a 4-0 run.

On the night Arizona out-hit BYU .189 to .116 and out-blocked the Cougars 14-11. The teams also tied with six service aces each.

BYU was led by Metcalf and Wilson who each had 12 kills. Defensively the Cougars were led by Uila Crabbe's 10 digs, and six blocks each from Carrie Bowers and Larson.

In her final match in a BYU uniform, Larson also had four kills, two aces and four digs. Michelle Mahaffey tallied three digs in her final match as a Cougar.

Arizona was led by a match-high 21 kills from Glass. She also had 11 digs for a double-double. Other Wildcats with double-digit kills included; Ladd (14), Rutledge (14) and Torregrosa (10).

"Hitting .116 as a team isn't going to beat a team like that," Lamb said. "We actually did do a better job of serving as the match went on which helped to boost our play."

BYU will miss the NCAA Tournament for only the second time in 22 years and its string of 28 consecutive 20-win seasons is snapped.

                              Volleyball Box Score
               Arizona vs BYU Cougars (Nov 29, 2002 at PROVO, UT)
    Arizona                |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4  GARDNER, Laurie.....  4|  3   3   7  .000| 51|  0   2|  0|  6| 0  2  2|  3
 9  LADD, Bre...........  4| 14   7  26  .269|  2|  2   3|  0|  3| 0  7  0|  0
 13 RUTLEDGE, Lisa......  4| 14  10  42  .095|  3|  0   1|  2| 11| 0  2  0|  0
 15 AYERS, Angie........  4|  6   2   9  .444|  0|  1   2|  0|  5| 1  5  0|  0
 18 TORREGROSA, Shannon.  4| 10   7  30  .100|  3|  2   0|  0|  8| 0  5  0|  0
 86 GLASS, Kim..........  4| 21   9  45  .267|  2|  0   4|  0| 11| 1  3  0|  0
 1  WILLIAMS, Rachel....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 2  CRUM, Cassidy.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0
 3  ABERNATHY, Jennifer.  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 11 MULVANY, Kelli......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  4| 10| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 68  38 159  .189| 61|  6  12|  6| 59| 2 24  2|  3
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 14.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13 10  39  .077   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  16 12  39  .103   Arizona............. 28 30 30 30  17-10
   3  19  7  37  .324   BYU Cougars......... 30 25 25 27  14-19
   4  20  9  44  .250
    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...  4|  6   3  14  .214| 29|  0   3|  0|  5| 1  0  0|  0
 6  METCALF, Lindsey....  4| 12   8  42  .095|  2|  0   2|  1|  5| 1  3  0|  0
 7  LARSON, Allison.....  4|  4   6  21 -.095|  0|  2   3|  0|  4| 0  6  0|  0
 8  BOWERS, Carrie......  4|  4   2  16  .125|  1|  1   1|  1|  4| 0  6  1|  0
 15 WILSON, Kimberly....  4| 12   7  31  .161|  0|  1   0|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0
 18 NIELSEN, Laura......  4|  9   4  20  .250|  0|  1   1|  0|  3| 0  2  0|  0
 3  VARNER, April.......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0
 5  CASTILLO, Sahara....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   3|  2|  4| 0  0  0|  0
 10 WEBB, Erin..........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 12 CRABBE, Uila........  4|  0   0   2  .000|  2|  0   0|  1| 10| 0  0  0|  0
 17 MAHAFFEY, Michelle..  4|  0   0   1  .000|  1|  0   0|  1|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 47  30 147  .116| 36|  6  13|  6| 42| 2 18  1|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13  8  37  .135   Site: PROVO, UT (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  11  8  32  .094   Date: Nov 29, 2002   Attend: 748   Time: 2H 5M
   3  11  7  41  .098   Referees: TERRI JACKSON, ANNETTE COTTEL, KAREN MARSHAL
   4  12  7  37  .135

PROVO -- After a stirring run that ended just short of a championship in the Mountain West Conference Volleyball Tournament last week, the BYU women's volleyball team will end its season with matches against No. 2 Hawai'i Tuesday and No. 12 Arizona Friday. Both matches will be played in the Smith Fieldhouse and are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

The match against the Rainbow Wahine will be broadcast live on K-BYU (channel 11), BYU-TV and BYU-Radio. A live online video and audio stream of the match will be available through the BYU women's volleyball homepage at www.byucougars.com. The match is also being billed as Blue Hogi Yogi Night and fans can obtain free ticket vouchers to the match at any participating Utah Valley Hogi Yogi's. Friday's match against the Wildcats is Senior Night where BYU senior's Allison Larson and Michelle Mahaffey will be recognized.

The Cougars (14-17) will miss the NCAA Tournament for the just the second time in 21 years and have never had more than 17 losses in a season (In 1979 BYU was 21-17-3).

A season in which five Cougars have seen the injury list and another four have missed parts of the season due to other reasons, BYU has put together an inexperienced lineup against a competitive schedule.

BYU has played seven teams ranked that have been ranked in the USA Today/AVCA Coaches Top 25 poll at some point this season. This weekend's matches will mark the eighth and ninth team's the Cougars have played against top-25 competition this year.

Cougar rightside hitter and all-MWC team selection Larson is finishing the year strong as BYU's most effective offensive threat. She has led BYU in kills in four of its past seven matches, along with team-highs of 10 kills and a .421 attack percentage against Utah in the MWC finals. On the year Larson has led the Cougars in kills 13 times while leading the team in attempts only once. She averages a team-best 2.83 kills per game while hitting .221.

BYU's resurgent play in the MWC Tournament was correlated to their improved defensive play. The Cougars out-blocked all three of their opponents last week by a combined 42.5-24.0. Junior Carrie Bowers led the Cougars with 21 blocks (1.62 bpg) on the week and junior Uila Crabbe led the team with 49 digs (3.78 dpg).

The Rainbow Wahine (28-1), coming off a championship at the Western Athletic Conference Tournament last week, were undefeated until losing to No. 4 Stanford, Nov. 10. They are led by the dynamic junior outside hitting tandem of Kim Willoughby and Lily Kahumoku. All-American Willoughby is second nationally in averaging 6.33 kpg (.368) and Kahumoku a former All-American averages 5.28 kpg (.354).

The Wildcats (16-10) had the top-rated recruiting class of 2001 and have won eight of their past 11 matches after having started the season 8-7. Arizona is led by freshman Kim Glass who leads the team with 4.87 kpg and 0.44 sapg.