Pessoa Leads Cougars Over Stanford, 3-0

PROVO -- Hitting his career-best .700 percentage, senior outside hitter Fernando Pessoa racked up 16 kills to lead the fourth-ranked BYU men's volleyball team 3-0 (30-24, 30-24, 30-25) over visiting No.11-ranked Stanford, Friday at the Smith Fieldhouse.

The Cougars improve to 8-3 overall, maintaining their league-leading 6-1 record while the Cardinal drops to 5-10 overall, 3-8 in the MPSF. With the win, BYU also stretches its winning streak to seven matches and 4-1 at home. The all-time series between the two teams improves to 15-8 and 7-2 in Provo.

"Anytime you beat a Stanford team, it's a good thing," head coach Tom Peterson. "But we didn't play our best match. We need to cut down on our passing mistakes and stop missing serves."

The Cougars hit a blistering .520 percentage in the third game, powered by senior opposite Joe Hillman with 10 kills for the match and a season-best .471 hitting percentage. Transfer sophomore Victor Batista led the front row in blocking, recording six blocks on the night. Batista also gave the team seven kills and two aces.

"Ever since Victor got here in the second week of the season, he's really solidified our lineup," Peterson said. "The bad thing is we might lose Chris (Gorny). But Victor can even get better than he is now."

BYU started game one with three consecutive kills by senior Chris Gorny, giving the Cougars a 4-1 lead. Stanford kept the first game close until BYU went on a 3-0 run, sparked by a triple block of Gorny, Hillman and Jonathan Alleman. Outside hitter Alleman finished with eight kills and contributed two aces. BYU didn't look back after Batista slammed a kill off a quick set by Carlos Moreno, finishing out game one 30-24.

"Alleman might not think he was having a good match, but he did other things well," Peterson said. "Jon served well. He was getting zip on the ball."

The Cardinal kicked off the second game with a 5-1 lead, after a block by Patrick Bomhack and Chris Ahlfeldt. Stanford kept the lead with a four-point cushion, 16-12, off a block by Kevin Hansen. The Cougars pushed back and gained momentum after a kill and solo block by Batista at 19-19. After a 4-0 run, BYU capitalized on Cardinal errors to finish game two, 30-24.

Gorny had registered five kills in the second game, before coming out for the rest of the night due to an ankle injury.

In the third game the Cougars went on a 5-0 run, including Hillman's two aces and a combination block by Batista and Moreno. BYU kept the lead for the rest of the match and finished out with back-to-back kills by Alleman and a Moreno kill, 30-25.

The Cougars will finish out the conference match-up with Stanford, Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse. College Sports TV will kick off its Spikes men's volleyball schedule with a live telecast of the match. CSTV is available on Adelphia and Insight cable system, as well as on DirecTV, channel 610.

For detailed box score, click the pdf version link above.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                        2004 BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
   Stanford University vs BRIGHAM YOUNG (Feb 20, 2004 at Brigham Young Univ.)
    Stanford University    |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  BUELL, Craig........  3| 10   2  20  .400|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|  10.5
 2  AHLFELDT, Chris.....  3|  5   0  14  .357|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  0|   6.0
 5  VOGEL, David........  3| 11   3  19  .421|  2|  0   3|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|  11.0
 7  CLAYTON, William....  3|  6   6  22  .000|  0|  0   4|  3|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   6.0
 9  JACOBS, Jeremy......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  3|  3| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 17 HANSEN, Kevin.......  3|  2   0   8  .250| 36|  1   2|  0|  6| 1  1  0|  0|   4.5
 3  MANOV, Nick.........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  REDDY, Ben..........  1|  2   0   4  .500|  0|  0   3|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   2.0
 11 LINDBERG, Brian.....  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 18 BOMHACK, Patrick....  3|  7   4  14  .214|  1|  0   1|  0|  5| 0  2  0|  0|   8.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 43  15 101  .277| 40|  1  14|  6| 18| 1  6  0|  0|  48.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  15  5  44  .227   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  13  7  30  .200   Stanford University. 24 24 25  5-10,3-8 MPSF
   3  15  3  27  .444   BRIGHAM YOUNG....... 30 30 30  8-3,6-1 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
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  MORENO, Carlos......  3|  4   2   8  .250| 45|  1   0|  0|  6| 0  3  1|  1|   6.5
 7  GORNY, Chris........  2|  5   2  14  .214|  1|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  2  0|  0|   6.0
 11 HILLMAN, Joe........  3| 10   2  17  .471|  1|  2   3|  0|  2| 0  2  1|  0|  13.0
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  3|  8   4  21  .190|  2|  0   1|  0|  5| 0  1  0|  0|   8.5
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  3| 16   2  20  .700|  2|  1   3|  0|  7| 0  3  1|  0|  18.5
 18 BATISTA, Victor.....  3|  7   1  12  .500|  0|  2   5|  0|  0| 1  5  2|  0|  12.5
 6  FERRE, Aaron........  2|  4   2   6  .333|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   4.5
 8  HYTE, David.........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 OLMSTEAD, Shawn.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0| 11| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
    TEAM................   |                 |   |       |  1|   |        |   |   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 54  15  98  .398| 52|  6  12|  1| 34| 1 17  5|  1|  69.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 9.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  18  5  40  .325   Site: Brigham Young Univ. (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  19  6  33  .394   Date: Feb 20, 2004   Attend: 3562   Time: 1H 50M
   3  17  4  25  .520   Referees: LES CALLES, MAILIE JEWKES

PROVO -- After a week off, the fourth-ranked BYU men's volleyball (7-3, 5-1 MPSF) host No. 11 Stanford (5-9, 3-7 MPSF) in a conference match-up, beginning at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Smith Fieldhouse. Game time on Saturday has been changed from 8:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. due to television broadcast.

Friday's match will be broadcast on KBYU locally, starting at 7 p.m., and on BYU-TV nationally. College Sports TV will televise Saturday's match against Stanford at 7 p.m. CSTV can be found on DirecTV, channel 610.

"Stanford is a good team," head coach Tom Peterson said. "We have to win these matches at home to stay competitive in the conference.

The Cougars swept 12-ranked Pacific on both nights, 3-0 (30-25, 30-25, 30-23) on Feb. 6 and 3-0 (30-27, 30-22, 30-27) on Feb. 7 to stretch their winning streak to six. BYU blocked the Tigers on Feb. 7 in a match lasting only an hour and a half. With the win, BYU extends its overall record over Pacific to 13-4 and 9-0 at home.

The Cougars had the advantage over the Tigers, with 10 blocks to four and hitting .386 to Pacific's .196 percentage. BYU only had one player in double-digit kills, but the team spread the offense around with four players recording eight kills each. Leading the Cougars was All-American Jonathan Alleman with 11 kills, hitting .562 and committing only two errors.

Alleman also led the Cougars with 16 kills on 21 attempts (.667) on Feb. 6, while Fernando Pessoa, the MPSF Player of the Week for Feb. 2-6, recorded his seventh straight double-digit performance with 12 kills. Alleman led all scorers with 18 points, followed by Pessoa with 15. Victor Batista had six kills, three assisted blocks and a team-leading three aces.

The match up with Stanford will be the 23th meeting between the two teams, as BYU leads the series 14-8 overall, including 6-2 in Provo. Last season, the Cougars took both matches at Stanford in five games, winning first two matches of the 2003 season.

"Stanford is a big name school in volleyball and we cannot take them lightly," Peterson said. We'll need to minimize our mistakes and keep up our defense and blocking."

The Cardinal fell to the No. 2 Hawai'i, 3-0 Saturday night in Maples Pavilion. Stanford now stands at 5-9 on the season and 3-7 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play. With the win, the Warriors improve to 8-2 overall and 5-1 in MPSF play. The University of Hawai'i proved why it is the No. 2 men's volleyball team in the country by also defeating Stanford, 3-0 on Friday.

For Friday's match, junior outsider hitter David Vogel led the Cardinal with eight kills, while redshirt junior Pat Bomhack added seven. Sophomore outside hitter Ben Reddy and junior middle blocker Craig Buell each added four kills.

On Saturday, Buell paced Stanford with 6-of-9 kills with no errors and redshirt junior setter Kevin Hansen added 5-of-9 kills with no errors. Redshirt sophomore William Clayton contributed six kills and Reddy paced the Cardinal with three kills. Vogel, Bomhack and Buell each added two kills in the game.