Team Effort Helps Cougars Bounce Back for Win

PROVO -- The BYU men's volleyball team bounced back from its first loss of the season with a 30-22, 30-21, 30-27 sweep of the Cal Baptist Lancers Saturday night thanks to an all-around team effort. With the victory, the Cougars improved to 4-1 on the season while the Lancers fell to 3-2.

BYU Head Coach Tom Peterson said that consistency was the main adjustment the team made after Friday night's emotional loss.

"We didn't go long periods of ups and downs," Peterson said. "We were more consistent and we shut them down from what they were doing the night before."

While no one player stood out for the Cougars, several players had strong matches. Senior middle blocker Michael Burke had an errorless night, hitting .667 (8-0-12) and finishing with five blocks. Freshman outside hitter Ivan Perez had a team-high 12 kills and junior outside hitter Victor Batista contributed 11. Junior outside hitter Taylor Evans came off the bench to have his best hitting match of the season, finishing with 10 kills and a .571 (10-2-14) hitting percentage. All of his kills came in the third game.

Peterson commented that one of the Cougar's strengths evident Saturday was their depth.

"Who are you going to key on?" Peterson said. "That's the strength of our team. Hopefully it will be throughout the year, that you just can't key on one guy."

Seidu Ajanako led Cal Baptist, finishing with a match-high 19 kills while Shaun Dyk chipped in 15 kills. Each player hit for solid percentages of .375 and .400, respectively, but the pair got little help from the rest of the Lancers.

As a team, BYU was on fire, hitting .458 (50-12-83) and finishing 10.5 team blocks. The Lancers were limited to a .243 (49-24-103) percentage and finished with seven blocks.

The Cougars came out determined in game one to erase the disappointment of Friday night's loss and jumped out to a 7-2 lead. Baptist fought back, tying the game at 10 but BYU weathered the storm and took the lead for good on a kill by senior opposite hitter Casey Patterson. From there the Cougars were in the driver's seat on their way to a 30-22 win. Burke had five kills and two blocks for the game while Batista had four kills and junior setter Rob Neilson dished out 11 assists.

The second game was much like the first with BYU jumping out to an early lead at 4-1. The Lancers kept the game close, pulling to within a point on several occasions, lastly at 12-11. Burke then took over, getting a kill and serving four straight points, including an ace, to increase the lead to 17-11. Batista and Patterson each contributed four kills while Burke added three to help the Cougars win 30-21.

Game three was more of a struggle for BYU as Cal Baptist rallied to take the 24-22 lead after trailing for much of the game. The Cougars refused to let the Lancers take the game as Batista notched a kill and a block by the freshmen pair of Russell Holmes and Perez tied the game at 24. Back-to-back hitting errors by Baptist gave BYU the 26-24 lead and two kills by Evans, a block by Burke and Perez, and a Perez kill sealed the victory at 30-27, giving the match to the Cougars.

The story of game three was the play of Evans, who replaced Patterson at the opposite hitter position and had 10 kills. Evans had struggled in previous matches with his hitting but came on strong to provide a boost for the BYU offense, which hit a scorching .630 (19-2-27) for the game.

The crowd was once again loud and energetic, as 3,322 came out to support the Cougars. Peterson wanted to thank the crowd for their part in the win.

"For one thing, I'd like to thank the crowd," Peterson said. "Cal Baptist is not a name school and we're filling up the stands."

BYU will open Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play on the road next Friday and Saturday with matches against UC Santa Barbara. Friday's match will begin at 7 p.m. while Saturday's will start at 5 p.m.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                      Briham Young University - Volleyball
      Cal Baptist vs Brigham Young Univ. (Jan 15, 2005 at PROVO, UT 84602)
    Cal Baptist            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  AJANAKO, Seidu......  3| 19   7  32  .375|  1|  0   3|  0|  3| 0  2  0|  0|  20.0
 2  LAYTON, Tim.........  3|  6   3  14  .214|  0|  0   2|  0|  0| 0  4  1|  0|   8.0
 4  JOHNSON, Trever.....  3|  1   0   5  .200| 42|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  3  0|  1|   2.5
 8  ROSE, Sergio........  3|  4   4  10  .000|  0|  0   5|  0|  0| 0  3  0|  0|   5.5
 10 VETTER, Romain......  3|  3   3  10  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  0|   4.0
 18 DYK, Shaun..........  3| 15   5  25  .400|  0|  1   1|  1|  1| 0  0  0|  0|  16.0
 3  PLUNKETT, Eric......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  ANDERS, Bryan.......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   2|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 12 HAGSTROM, Tyler.....  3|  0   0   1  .000|  1|  0   0|  0| 10| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 NICKERSON, Scott....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 16 SPENCE, Corey.......  3|  1   2   6 -.167|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 41 HINZ, Tyler.........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 49  24 103  .243| 45|  1  13|  1| 16| 0 14  1|  1|  57.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  16  9  32  .219   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  13  8  36  .139   Cal Baptist......... (0) 22 21 27  3-2; 0-0 IND
   3  20  7  35  .371   Brigham Young Univ.. (3) 30 30 30  4-1; 0-0 MPFS
    Brigham Young Univ.    |     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|  8   0  12  .667|  0|  1   1|  0|  1| 2  3  0|  0|  12.5
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  3| 12   3  20  .450|  0|  0   1|  1|  0| 0  2  1|  0|  13.0
 9  PATTERSON, Casey....  3|  6   3  12  .250|  2|  0   2|  0|  5| 0  3  1|  0|   7.5
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  3|  1   1   5  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  4  1|  0|   3.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  3|  2   0   3  .667| 44|  0   0|  0|  2| 1  1  0|  1|   3.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  3| 11   3  16  .500|  1|  0   0|  0|  3| 0  1  0|  1|  11.5
 2  STEWART, Bryan......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 4  CONGELLIERE, Robert.  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 5  CONGELLIERE, Brian..  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  HEYES, Matt.........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  3| 10   2  14  .571|  0|  0   1|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|  10.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 50  12  82  .463| 47|  1   5|  1| 21| 3 15  3|  2|  61.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 10.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  14  4  27  .370   Site: PROVO, UT 84602 (SMITH FIELDHOUSE)
   2  17  6  28  .393   Date: Jan 15, 2005   Attend: 3322   Time: 1H 30 M
   3  19  2  27  .630   Referees: LES CALLES, TOM GIVEN, KRISTEN MAETANI
                                         1   2   3 Total
                        Tie scores       4   1   3     8
                        Lead changes     1   2   3     6