MWC Second Half Begins at Utah

PROVO -- Coming off a split weekend on the road, the BYU women’s volleyball team (9-13, 4-4 MWC) will travel 45 miles north to in-state rival Utah (10-11, 5-3 MWC) for a Friday night match at 7:30 p.m., televised live on The Mtn.

"We are improving daily right now which is a great place to be going into the second round of conference play," BYU head coach Shay Goulding said. "We are confident in our play and still making adjustments daily to be better. As a team, we were very dissatisfied with our play against Utah in the first round and look forward to making things right this weekend by having the last word in the Deseret Duel."

With only one match this week, the Cougars will travel to Salt Lake City on Friday night to take on the Utes in the 90th meeting between the teams. BYU leads the all-time series at 64-26, with the Utes taking the last five matches. The Utes are led by Morgan Odale on the attack with 276 kills at 3.37 kills per set.

The Cougars are coming off a 1-1 weekend on the road, dropping one match to New Mexico and beating TCU, both in four sets. In the win over TCU, the team came back from a nine-point deficit in the fourth set to win 3-1 on the road.

In the match, four Cougars were in double-digit kills. True freshman Jennifer Hamson led on the attack with 15 kills while Stephanie Snow and Christie Carpenter both chalked up 14 kills apiece. Christina Measom added 11 kills while Nicole Warner had eight blocks.

Three Cougars had double-digit digs with libero Kendalyn Hartsock leading the way with 16, followed by Kiana Rogers with 13 and Carpenter with 10. Rogers also tallied 53 assists in the win.

The Utes are coming off a four-set loss to New Mexico as well, although they outhit and out-blocked the Lobos. Erin Redd led the Utes on the attack against the Lobos with 15 kills on .433 hitting. Four Lobos and four Utes were in double-digit digs, the game coming down to New Mexico out-digging Utah 95-to-74.

After Friday’s match the Cougars will host SDSU Saturday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. MT in the Smith Fieldhouse.