Hot Hitting Leads BYU Past UCLA

LOS -- In their first road match of the season, the Cougars caught fire after losing game one to defeat UCLA 3-1 (24-30, 30-26, 30-14, 30-24) Thursday at Pauley Pavillion. BYU is now 7-0 overall and 5-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation while UCLA is 4-4 overall and 0-2 in league play.

"We made all sorts of errors in the first game," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "We were nervous. We just settled down after that and played the way we can. There wasn't anything magical about it, we just played better."

Ivan Perez led three Cougars in double-digit kills with 21, his fourth match this season eclipsing the 20-kill plateau. Taylor Evans and Russell Holmes were the other BYU players in double digits with 12 and 11 kills, respectively. Holmes led the Cougars in blocks with seven as the team tallied 11.5.

Perez struggled in game one but then cruised to a .500 (21-4-34) hitting percentage. He was one of four BYU players to hit over .400 as Evans hit .474, Victor Batista hit .471 and Jonathan Charette hit .533. As a team, BYU hit .450 (65-16-109). Batista added a season-high four aces while Evans tied his season best with three. The Cougars had nine aces for the match, a season high.

Paul George led UCLA with 11 kills while hitting .562. Kick Sheftic also had 11 kills and Damien Scott added 10. The Bruins hit .288 (55-21-118) as a team. UCLA had 4.0 blocks.

UCLA controlled game one, out-hitting the Cougars .444 (16-4-27) to .259 (13-6-27). After BYU settled down, it was smooth sailing as the Cougars hit .452 (20-6-31) in game two, .636 (15-1-22) in game three and .483 (17-3-29) in the match-clinching fourth.

The Bruins struggled after their hot first game, hitting .312, .148 and .250 in games two, three and four.

"We got them out of system well with our serve," Peterson said. "I thought our serving and passing got better and that is always going to key everything."

BYU and UCLA will be back in action Saturday night at 7 p.m. in Pauley Pavillion. The match can be heard live by visiting www.uclabruins.com. The Cougars are currently on a seven-match win streak, their longest win streak since concluding 2004 with seven-consecutive win and starting 2005 with three straight for a total of 10-straight wins.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
                   BYU vs UCLA Bruins (Jan 26, 2006 at UCLA)
    BYU                    |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  CHARETTE, Jonathan..  4|  9   1  15  .533|  0|  1   1|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|  10.5
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  4| 21   4  34  .500|  2|  0   5|  0|  3| 0  3  0|  0|  22.5
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  4| 11   6  20  .250|  0|  0   4|  0|  2| 0  7  1|  0|  14.5
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  4|  2   1   3  .333| 54|  0   3|  0|  8| 0  5  1|  0|   4.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  4|  9   1  17  .471|  1|  4   2|  1|  3| 0  4  0|  0|  15.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  4| 12   3  19  .474|  1|  3   3|  1|  9| 0  3  1|  0|  16.5
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  2|  0   0|  2|  5| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 10 COX, Scott..........  1|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 18 GOMES, Rodrigo......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 65  16 109  .450| 60|  9  19|  4| 32| 0 23  3|  0|  85.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13  6  27  .259   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  20  6  31  .452   BYU................. (3) 24 30 30 30  7-0 (5-0)
   3  15  1  22  .636   UCLA Bruins......... (1) 30 26 14 24  4-4 (0-2)
   4  17  3  29  .483
    UCLA Bruins            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  Dennis Gonzalez.....  4|  2   1   9  .111| 38|  0   1|  0|  4| 0  1  2|  0|   2.5
 9  Steve Klosterman....  4|  7   2  16  .312|  1|  0   2|  2|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   7.0
 10 Damien Scott........  3| 10   6  23  .174|  0|  0   3|  2|  2| 0  1  0|  0|  10.5
 15 David Russell.......  4|  4   2  12  .167|  0|  2   4|  0|  0| 1  1  1|  0|   7.5
 21 Paul George.........  4| 11   2  16  .562|  3|  0   5|  2|  8| 1  0  0|  0|  12.0
 27 Nick Scheftic.......  4| 11   3  24  .333|  1|  1   3|  0|  3| 0  1  0|  0|  12.5
 1  Tony Ker............  3|  2   0   3  .667|  1|  1   0|  0|  1| 0  0  1|  0|   3.0
 2  Sean O'Malley.......  1|  5   4   9  .111|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   5.0
 4  Blake Taylor........  1|  0   1   2 -.500|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 17 D.J. Stromath.......  1|  3   0   4  .750|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   3.0
 32 Matt Wade...........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  6|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 33 Eric Chaghouri......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  3|  3| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 55  21 118  .288| 50|  4  19|  9| 22| 2  4  4|  0|  63.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  16  4  27  .444   Site: UCLA (Pauley Pavilion)
   2  13  3  32  .312   Date: Jan 26, 2006   Attend: 745   Time: 2:00
   3  10  6  27  .148   Referees: Tony Chan, Marvin Hall
   4  16  8  32  .250