Hard Serving Leads to Sweep of Tritons

PROVO -- Victor Batista set the tone early with dominant serving and the Cougars rode the momentum to a sweep (30-19, 30-24, 30-24) of the UC San Diego Tritons Friday night in the second-to-last home match of the season. BYU improved to 17-9 overall and 12-7 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and the Tritons fell to 2-21 and 1-18.

"Victor (Batista) served hard and it really got us going," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "If we serve well and receive well, we're going to be very competitive. They were out of system quite a bit and I think a lot of that had to do with our serving."

Batista led the Cougars with 12 kills, three service aces and four blocks. Michael Burke had 10 kills and a match-high .533 hitting percentage (10-2-15) to go along with two aces and three blocks. Russell Holmes came off the bench and had a strong performance with five kills and four blocks.

As a team BYU hit .375 (44-14-80) and had six aces, 23 digs and 11.0 team blocks. The Cougars held the Tritons to a .116 (33-23-86) hitting percentage as no UCSD player managed double-digit kills.

Russ Hardy led the Tritons with nine kills and Adam Rusch contributed seven. Dickens Tai had a match-high 10 digs.

Batista took matters into his own hands to start the first game, serving eight-straight points during a 9-0 run that gave the Cougars an early 10-1 advantage. To go along with his serving run, he scored six of BYU's first 10 points on four kills and two aces. UCSD was unable to overcome the early deficit, trailing by at least six the rest of the way. Leading 27-19, the Cougars benefited from three-consecutive Triton hitting errors to close the game out at 30-19. Batista led the way for BYU with six kills, two aces and two blocks while Neilson set the Cougars to a .400 (18-6-30) hitting percentage. UCSD was held to a .069 (9-7-29) percentage.

The Tritons started strong in the second, jumping out to a 5-2 advantage on kills by Rusch, John Mark Wendler and Russ Hardy. UCSD held the lead until the Cougars tied the score at 11 on a Triton hitting error. A Patterson kill gave BYU its first lead at 14-13 and after a UCSD kill tied the game, the Cougars jumped ahead 17-14 on two Burke aces. UCSD managed to close the gap to 17-16 but the BYU attack was too much as the Cougars outscored the Tritons 13-8 to win 30-24. Burke led the way with five kills and two aces and BYU hit .391 (13-4-23).

UCSD kept the third game close at 9-8 before the Cougars took control on a Batista kill and back-to-back team blocks by Holmes and Perez and Holmes and Evans to go ahead 12-9. BYU maintained a slim lead at 16-12 before going on an 8-2 run to make the advantage insurmountable at 22-14. Peterson then emptied his bench and the second team finished the game, winning 30-24.

"We played well tonight but we can get better," Peterson said. "If we can eliminate the glitches and get more consistent passing and better blocking, we'll be tough to beat."

The Cougars will concluded their regular-season home schedule Saturday night with another match against UC San Diego at 7 p.m. BYU's three seniors, Michael Burke, Casey Patterson and Rob Congelliere, will be honored after the match.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
         UCSD vs #7 Brigham Young (Apr 08, 2005 at BYU PROVO UT 84602)
    UCSD                   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  REUTER, Mike........  3|  6   4  16  .125|  0|  0   3|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|   6.5
 2  HARDY, Russ.........  3|  9   8  25  .040|  0|  1   3|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|  10.5
 6  RUSCH, Adam.........  3|  7   2  15  .333|  0|  1   1|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   8.5
 10 TOREN, Adam.........  3|  5   7  19 -.105|  0|  1   3|  3|  1| 1  1  0|  0|   7.5
 20 DIERDORFF, Brooks...  3|  0   2   3 -.667| 30|  0   4|  0|  1| 0  1  1|  0|   0.5
 21 WENDLER, John Mark..  3|  2   0   3  .667|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   2.5
 4  TAI, Dickens........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  3| 10| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 9  SEXTON, Joe.........  2|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 11 JONES, Nate.........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 12 DANLEY, Reuben......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 24 SMITH, Garret.......  1|  4   0   4 1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   4.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 33  23  86  .116| 30|  3  16|  6| 18| 1  7  1|  0|  40.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1   9  7  29  .069   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  12  6  26  .231   UCSD................ (0) 19 24 24  2-21; 1-18 MPSF
   3  12 10  31  .065   Brigham Young....... (3) 30 30 30  17-9; 12-7 MPSF
    Brigham Young          |     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| 10   2  15  .533|  0|  2   3|  0|  1| 0  3  1|  0|  13.5
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  3|  6   2  11  .364|  1|  0   3|  0|  8| 0  3  0|  0|   7.5
 9  PATTERSON, Casey....  2|  4   2   8  .250|  2|  0   1|  1|  1| 1  1  0|  0|   5.5
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  3|  1   1   2  .000| 36|  1   1|  0|  3| 0  3  0|  0|   3.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  3| 12   2  21  .476|  0|  3   3|  0|  2| 0  4  2|  0|  17.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  3|  5   2  12  .250|  0|  0   3|  1|  3| 0  1  0|  0|   5.5
 2  STEWART, Bryan......  1|  1   1   3  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 4  CONGELLIERE, Robert.  3|  0   1   1-1.000|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 5  CONGELLIERE, Brian..  1|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  HEYES, Matt.........  1|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   0.5
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  3| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  3|  5   1   6  .667|  0|  0   2|  0|  1| 0  4  0|  0|   7.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 44  14  80  .375| 40|  6  17|  3| 23| 1 20  3|  0|  61.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  18  6  30  .400   Site: BYU PROVO UT 84602 (SMITH FIELDHOUSE)
   2  13  4  23  .391   Date: Apr 08, 2005   Attend: 2044   Time: 1H 30M
   3  13  4  27  .333   Referees: MAILE JEWKES, TOM GIVEN, MAETANI
                                         1   2   3 Total
                        Tie scores       1   6   3    10
                        Lead changes     1   2   3     6