Cougars Advance to MPSF Semifinals

PROVO -- Three Cougars hit in double figures with over .500 attack averages to lead BYU to a 34-32, 22-30, 30-25, 30-25 win over Cal State Northridge in the first round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament. BYU will continue to the semifinal round next week boasting a 20-6 overall record, while Northridge finishes for the season at 18-12.

BYU hit a .424 attack percent on the night, led by Jonathan Alleman on the attack with 21 kills, hitting .500. Michael Burke and Jaime Mayol added 14 and 19 kills, respectively, while both staying above the .500 mark, and Burke added six blocks on the night.

"Overall play is our strength. Look at the numbers," BYU head coach Tom Peterson said. "It's our team being able to set everywhere and having everyone contribute in some way. If we all have these high hitting percentages, that's our strength. We don't have just one player that dominates."

Rafael Paal registered a double-double, knocking down 16 kills and a match-high 13 digs. Paal also recorded BYU's sole ace of the night, but that one ace garnered him a new BYU single-season ace record with 40 on the year. Paal set the record last season at 39.

Libero Fernando Pessoa had a good night with 12 defensive digs, while setter Carlos Moreno guided the Cougars with 76 assists and added four digs and three blocks.

"I always know we're going to win when Carlos has a good look on his face," Alleman said. "You can tell when we're playing bad sometimes he'll get a little down, but as soon as he gets back into his rhythm I know that we're going to start playing well."

Indeed the Cougars did play well, out-hitting the Matadors 80 to 67 on the attack and out-digging them 40 to 25.

Mayol registered a perfect 1.000 hitting percent with eight kills on eight attempts and Alleman hit in double digits with a .467 to get the Cougars off to a good start in the first game. The two teams fought it out to a tie at 32, and with Paal serving the Cougars were able to draw the lead on a Northridge attack error then seal the game on a combined block from Alleman and Gorny.

Down 0-1 in the match, the Matadors entered game two to win. Tamer George helped the Matadors to an early lead with two aces--Northridge's only two aces of the match. BYU got behind by as much as eight points and despite hitting .423 as a team in game two, was out-done by Northridge's .600 attack and three blocks.

BYU's blockers came back out with 2.5 blocks in game three after none in game two, and the Cougars hit .519 as a team to win the third game 30-25 and again take the lead in the match.

The Matadors were overpowered in the fourth game as the Cougars held them to a .125 attack percent while hitting .324 and out-blocked them 5.0 to 1.0. Paal knocked down six kills in the fourth game, including a flying spike to center court to win the game 30-25 and the match 3-1.

Joe Nargi led the Matadors with a match-high 24 kills on 39 attempts, and Nils Nielsen and

George added 15 and 10, respectively. Setter Ty Tramblie registered 61 assists in the match.

"We're in the position that we needed to be in," Peterson said. "We're going to play a great team in the semifinals, and it will probably determine who goes to the final four. It's all we asked for and it's all we expected."

With the first-round win, BYU will travel to Malibu next week for the semifinals to take on the winner of the Hawaii-Pacific match on Thursday, April 24.

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                              Volleyball Box Score
                        2003 BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
  No. 10 CS Northridge vs Brigham Young (Apr 19, 2003 at Brigham Young Univ.)
    No. 10 CS Northridge   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2  Nielsen, Nils.......  4| 15   4  37  .297|  0|  0   5|  1|  1| 1  0  1|  0
 3  Nargi, Joe..........  4| 24   6  39  .462|  0|  0   2|  0|  5| 0  0  0|  0
 4  Waite, Brian........  4|  6   2  13  .308|  0|  0   4|  0|  1| 1  0  0|  0
 5  Douglas, Stan.......  4|  7   2  13  .385|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 1  2  1|  0
 6  Tramblie, Ty........  4|  2   1   5  .200| 61|  0   2|  0|  5| 1  2  2|  0
 11 George, Tamer.......  4| 10   3  24  .292|  0|  2   1|  0|  3| 1  0  0|  0
 8  Hanson, Cary........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 12 English, Doug.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  9| 0  0  0|  0
 15 Allen, Billy........  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 16 Arneson, Scott......  4|  3   0   4  .750|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  0  1|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 67  18 135  .363| 62|  3  16|  1| 25| 5  4  5|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  4  33  .394   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  19  1  30  .600   No. 10 CS Northridge 32 30 25 25  18-12, 12-10
   3  17  4  32  .406   Brigham Young....... 34 22 30 30  20-6, 17-5
   4  14  9  40  .125
    Brigham Young          |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  BURKE, Michael......  4| 14   2  22  .545|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 1  5  1|  0
 5  MORENO, Carlos......  4|  2   2   6  .000| 76|  0   3|  0|  4| 0  3  0|  1
 6  GORNY, Chris........  4|  8   2  13  .462|  1|  0   4|  0|  1| 0  3  1|  1
 7  MAYOL, Jaime........  4| 19   4  27  .556|  1|  0   1|  1|  7| 0  2  0|  0
 9  PAAL, Rafael........  4| 16   8  31  .258|  1|  1   1|  1| 13| 0  1  0|  0
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  4| 21   5  32  .500|  0|  0   4|  0|  3| 0  3  1|  0
 1  PATTERSON, Casey....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 15 OLMSTEAD, Shawn.....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  4|  0   1   1-1.000|  0|  0   0|  1| 12| 0  0  0|  0
 18 SLABE, Luka.........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   2|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 80  24 132  .424| 79|  1  16|  3| 40| 1 17  3|  2
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 9.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  29 10  42  .452   Site: Brigham Young Univ. (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  15  4  26  .423   Date: Apr 19, 2003   Attend: 929   Time: 2:05
   3  18  4  27  .519   Referees: Larry Schwartz, Tom Given, Erin Yamashita
   4  18  6  37  .324

PROVO -- On Saturday, April 19 at 7 p.m. the Brigham Young University Cougars will begin post-season play as they host Cal State Northridge in the first round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament at the Smith Fieldhouse. BYU (19-6, 17-5 MPSF) has been seeded second in the tournament, while Northridge (18-11, 12-10 MPSF) is seeded seventh.

Northridge hosted BYU just four weeks ago during the regular season, when the teams split two matches on March 21 and 21 in the Matadome. In Friday night's series opener the Cougars out-blocked the Matadors 12.5 to 6.5 for a 3-0 sweep. In the second match, however, Northridge came back to overpower BYU for the first time since 1996, winning 3-1 Saturday night.

BYU had a chance to become the top seed in the tournament last week as it took on top-ranked Pepperdine. In the first match of the series the Cougars fought back from a 2-0 deficit to win the match 3-2 and contend for the MPSF title Saturday night. In the second match, though, Pepperdine showed its strength, defeating BYU 3-0 and winning the conference title outright.

Only the top eight teams from the MPSF compete in the tournament, and 2003 marks BYU's seventh-straight trip to the post season and the ninth appearance since the program began in 1990. BYU has never encountered Cal State Northridge in post-season play.

The winner of the first-round match between BYU and Northridge will play the winner of the Hawaii-Pacific match on Thursday, April 24.

Saturday's match is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse at BYU. Tickets cost $5 for students with ID and $10 for adults. No All-Sport or Cougar cards will be accepted. Tickets may be purchased from the Marriott Center Ticket Office in advance or will be sold at the door starting 90 minutes before the match begins. Saturday's match will not be televised, but live stats will be available through byucougars.com.

Requests for media credentials should be made in writing to Amy Boam (mvolleyball_sid@byu.edu) or Jeff Reynolds (jeff_Reynolds@byu.edu) by Friday, April 18 at noon.

MPSF Tournament Seedings:
1. Pepperdine (19-3)
2. BYU (17-5)
3. Hawaii (17-5)
4. Stanford (14-8)
5. UC Irvine (12-10)
6. Pacific (12-10)
7. CS Northridge (12-10)
8. Long Beach State (11-11)
Tournament Bracket
First Round: Saturday, April 19
 Match 1: #8 seed at #1 seed  (Long Beach at Pepperdine)
 Match 2: #5 seed at #4 seed (UC Irvine at Stanford)
 Match 3: #6 seed at #3 seed (Pacific at Hawaii)
 Match 4: #7 seed at #2 seed (CS Northridge at BYU)
Semifinal Matches: Thursday, April 24
 Match 5: Winner match 1 vs. winner match 2
 Match 6: Winner match 3 vs. winner match 4
Championship Match: Saturday, April 26
 Winner match 5 vs. winner match 6
All first-round matches will be played at the host institution's regular-season
starting time unless otherwise determined. The Semifinal and Championship
matches will be held at the top-seeded institution remaining after the first
round and times will be established by the MPSF office in conjunction with the
host institution.