Banner Night as Cougars Defeat No. 1 UCLA

PROVO -- There was plenty of drama in the Smith Fieldhouse as the BYU Cougars defeated the No. 1 ranked UCLA Bruins in four games, 31-29, 30-22, 27-30, 30-28 and unveiled the 2004 National Championship banner Friday night. The Cougars now stand at 6-2 overall and 2-1 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The Bruins are 7-1 and 3-1.

The night started with a ceremony honoring the 2004 team. Each player was introduced and the season was recapped before the team pulled the cord that dropped the banner from the rafters. It now hangs alongside the 1999 and 2001 championship banners.

BYU Coach Tom Peterson was worried his team would come out flat after an emotional day of celebrating the past season. He said he was impressed at how his team came out and played the top-ranked Bruins.

"I was very impressed at how they came out tonight," Peterson said. "There were a lot of distractions today with celebrating the 2004 team. I thought the guys were fabulous."

After winning the first two games, the Cougars struggled to gain momentum in games three and four. BYU dropped the third, 27-30 as a comeback attempt failed. The fourth started out no better as the Bruins took advantage of several Cougar errors, jumping out to a 13-6 lead.

BYU proved resilient, scoring the next five points to get back into the game. After trading points, the Cougars were able to tie the game at 18 and then at 20. UCLA took a 23-21 lead before Rob Neilson, Russell Holmes, and Taylor Evans each had kills to tie the score at 24. Perez had a kill to give BYU its first lead since early in the third and an Evans kill gave the Cougars the lead for good at 26-25.

UCLA was still alive, only down one at 29-28 before senior middle blocker Michael Burke ended the match with a kill. Evans came up with several key kills throughout the night on his way to a career-high 17. Neilson quarterbacked the offense and collected 56 assists while Ivan Perez and Brian Rowley patrolled the back row, registering nine digs each.

Burke had 13 kills and hit .450 (13-4-20) on the night. He led all players with a career-high 10 blocks, three of which were solos, also a career-high.

On the night, BYU hit .279 (67-29-136) and limited the Bruins to .234 (56-26-128).

With a season high 5,629 fans in the Fieldhouse to cheer on the Cougars, BYU started strong in game one. A kill by Burke put the Cougars up 13-11 and started a 6-0 run which included three blocks. BYU maintained the lead up to 27-21 before the Bruins stormed back to tie the score at 29. The Cougars answered as freshman outside hitter Ivan Perez registered a thundering kill and Evans followed with one of his own to give the game to BYU, 31-29. Evans led the Cougars with seven kills while Neilson had 16 assists.

The score was tied at 7-all in the second before BYU went on a 7-2 run to blow open a close game. Up 14-9, the Cougars were able to cruise to the 30-22 win as UCLA never got closer than four. The offensive and defensive efforts of BYU were solid as the Cougars hit .440 (15-4-25) and limited the Bruins to a .149 hitting percentage (11-7-28).

BYU and UCLA will play again Saturday night at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                      Briham Young University - Volleyball
            UCLA vs Brigham Young Univ. (Jan 28, 2005 at Provo, UT)
    UCLA                   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  JOHNSON, Paul.......  4| 11   6  22  .227|  0|  1   4|  0|  2| 0  4  0|  0|  14.0
 7  ACOSTA, Jonathan....  4| 13   5  26  .308|  1|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  2  1|  0|  14.0
 9  ACEVEDO, Julio......  3|  0   0   0  .000| 18|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  1|   0.0
 14 KLOSTERMAN, Steve...  4|  5   5  21  .000|  0|  0   2|  0|  3| 0  2  0|  0|   6.0
 17 VINCE, Allan........  4|  4   1  10  .300|  0|  2   4|  0|  1| 2  2  1|  0|   9.0
 26 KRAUSHAAR, Kris.....  4|  8   3  23  .217|  0|  1   3|  0|  9| 0  2  0|  0|  10.0
 1  KER, Tony...........  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  2|  7| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 3  GONZALEZ, Dennis....  4|  0   0   0  .000| 36|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  GARRETT, Gray.......  2|  3   1   6  .333|  0|  0   2|  0|  2| 0  2  0|  0|   4.0
 21 GEORGE, Paul........  4| 10   5  18  .278|  0|  0   3|  0|  3| 1  0  0|  0|  11.0
 27 SCHEFTIC, Nick......  2|  2   0   2 1.000|  0|  0   2|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  0|   3.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 56  26 128  .234| 55|  4  22|  2| 36| 3 16  2|  1|  71.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1   9  4  28  .179   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  11  7  28  .143   UCLA................ (1) 29 22 30 28  7-1, 3-1 MPSF
   3  19  9  36  .278   Brigham Young Univ.. (3) 31 30 27 30  6-2, 2-1 MPSF
   4  17  6  36  .306
    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......  4| 13   4  20  .450|  1|  0   3|  0|  4| 3  7  1|  0|  19.5
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  4| 11   7  24  .167|  3|  1   3|  1|  9| 0  3  0|  0|  13.5
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  4|  6   2  14  .286|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  1  1|  0|   6.5
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  4|  6   3   9  .333| 56|  0   4|  0|  7| 1  3  0|  0|   8.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  4| 10   5  23  .217|  1|  0   3|  2|  0| 0  2  4|  0|  11.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  4| 17   6  39  .282|  1|  1   3|  0|  6| 1  1  0|  1|  19.5
 2  STEWART, Bryan......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  HEYES, Matt.........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  9| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 9  PATTERSON, Casey....  4|  4   2   7  .286|  0|  0   2|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0|   4.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 67  29 136  .279| 62|  2  19|  4| 39| 5 17  6|  1|  82.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 13.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  20 11  39  .231   Site: Provo, UT (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  15  4  25  .440   Date: Jan 28, 2005   Attend: 5629   Time: 2H 30M
   3  13  7  35  .171   Referees: JOHN MARTIN, BURT FULLER, MAETAINI
   4  19  7  37  .324
                                         1   2   3   4 Total
                        Tie scores       5   5  14   8    32
                        Lead changes     2   2   5   2    11