PROVO -- Taylor Evans and Ivan Perez recorded season-high kill totals to lead the Cougars past UC Santa Barbara 3-1 (30-17, 37-35, 23-30, 32-30) Friday and keep BYU's perfect record intact at 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The Gauchos fell to 2-4 overall and 1-2 in the MPSF.

Perez had a season-high 23 kills and hit .472 while Evans had 19, a career and season high, and hit .433. It was the third time this season Perez has recorded more than 20 kills. Victor Batista and Jonathan Charette were the other two Cougars in double digits with 14 and 10, respectively. As a team, BYU hit .443 (80-22-131) and had 31 digs and 8.5 blocks.

"Our middles are very good so that opened things up for Taylor (Evans) and Ivan (Perez)," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "We passed really well and that opened things up for our offense."

Evan Patak had a match-high 29 kills while Bryan Berman had 14 and Theo Brunner had 10. The Gauchos hit .328 (71-26-137) and had 26 digs and 6.5 blocks.

BYU led the match 2-1 but trailed 25-20 in game four. The Cougars then scored four-straight points to cut the lead to 24-25, two on kills by Batista and Jonathan Charette and then on back-to-back Santa Barbara hitting errors. The teams then traded points until the score was 28-26 in favor of the Gauchos. A Santa Barbara service error cut the lead to one and Perez added a kill to tie the score. Patak and Batista then traded kills to keep the score tied and Patak added another to give the Gauchos their final lead. Evans then tied the score at 30 with a kill and Patak registered a hitting error to give BYU its first lead of the game at 31-30. On the next play, Perez and Batista blocked Patak to score the match-winning point.

"I hope that is a sign of our team's determination," Peterson said of BYU's game-four comeback. "That comeback is a sign of what we can do. It was indicative of what we did in 2004 when we came back to beat Long Beach in the championship. That feeling is contagious and I hope it catches on."

In that match, BYU defeated Long Beach State in five games after trailing 10-6 and 12-9. The Cougars won game five 19-17.

Charette, Perez and Evans had four kills apiece in game four as BYU hit .371 (19-6-35). Patak had nine kills but six hitting errors while Jared Godinez had seven kills and no errors on eight swings.

Game one belonged to the Cougars from the opening serve. After Holmes was dug on the first attempt of the match, BYU recorded a kill on 14-straight hitting attempts and built a 25-12 lead. The Cougars were hitting .933 at that point (14-0-15). BYU put the game away with a 6-0 run that started with a service error by Max Klineman. Batista then served five-consecutive points, including an ace and two kills by Perez, who connected on his first six attempts. Evans finished the game at 30-17 with a kill and was 5-of-5. For the game, BYU hit .682 (17-2-22) and limited the Gauchos to .250 (11-5-24). It was the biggest single-game margin of victory for the Cougars since they defeated Pacific 30-17 on March 12, 2005 in game one of a 3-1 loss.

The second game was close throughout and ended in a 37-35 Santa Barbara win. The game featured 29 tie scored and 12 lead changes. The Cougars led early on at 8-5 but the Gauchos came back with a 3-0 run to tie the score. From there, neither team led by more than one until Santa Barbara won the game. BYU led 29-28 but yielded consecutive points to the Gauchos. Trailing 30-31, the Cougars got back-to-back points on kills by Batista and Perez. It appeared that BYU registered a block on the next play for the game winner but the Cougars were called in the net. The teams then battled until the game was tied at 35 when the Gauchos scored on a hitting error by Jonathan Charette and then Batista and Neilson miss communicated on a set and the ball fell to the ground for the winning point. Perez led the Cougars with 10 kills while Patak had eight for the Gauchos.

Santa Barbara carried the momentum from its game two win into the third and jumped out to a 10-7 lead. BYU fought back to tie the score at 16 and then took the lead for good at 17-16 on a kill by Evans. The Cougars then scored the next four points, capped by another Evans kill, to take a 21-17 lead. BYU gradually increased its lead by capitalizing on Gaucho errors and won the game 30-23. Evans led the Cougars with seven kills while Batista added four kills and two blocks.

The attendance for the match was 3,912. It marks the 35th consecutive match with over 1,000 fans in attendance.

The Cougars and Gauchos will square off again Saturday night in the Fieldhouse at 7 p.m. The match can be seen live on CougarTV.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
        #8 UCSB vs #2 BYU Cougars (Jan 20, 2006 at SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU)
    UCSB                   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4  Berman, Bryan.......  4| 14   4  21  .476|  0|  0   2|  0|  6| 0  3  0|  0|  15.5
 8  Fisher, Michael.....  4|  2   3  16 -.062|  0|  0   4|  0|  4| 0  2  0|  0|   3.0
 11 Klineman, Max.......  4|  1   0   2  .500| 49|  0   1|  0|  4| 0  1  0|  0|   1.5
 21 Brunner, Theo.......  4| 10   1  16  .562|  1|  0   2|  0|  0| 0  1  1|  0|  10.5
 33 Richman, Aaron......  3|  6   4  16  .125|  0|  0   0|  1|  0| 1  0  0|  0|   7.0
 40 Patak, Evan.........  4| 29  14  52  .288|  0|  1   9|  0|  3| 0  1  1|  0|  30.5
 3  Godinez, Jared......  4|  8   0  10  .800|  1|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   8.0
 5  Wilson, Drew........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  Jensen, Dane........  2|  1   0   1 1.000| 14|  0   0|  0|  4| 0  1  0|  0|   1.5
 12 Zakarian, Armen.....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  2|  0   0|  1|  4| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 Otte, Derek.........  1|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 22 Kennedy, David......  2|  0   0   2  .000|  1|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  0|   1.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 71  26 137  .328| 69|  1  19|  2| 26| 1 11  2|  0|  78.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 6.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  11  5  24  .250   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  21  5  37  .432   UCSB................ (1) 17 37 23 30  2-4; 1-2 MPSF
   3  18  7  37  .297   BYU Cougars......... (3) 30 35 30 32  5-0; 3-0 MPSF
   4  21  9  39  .308
    BYU Cougars            |     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| 10   6  23  .174|  0|  0   0|  0|  6| 0  2  0|  0|  11.0
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  4| 23   6  36  .472|  1|  0   2|  0|  6| 0  4  0|  0|  25.0
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  4|  9   2  16  .438|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  4  1|  0|  11.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  4|  5   0   5 1.000| 66|  0   0|  0|  7| 0  1  0|  0|   5.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  4| 14   2  21  .571|  2|  1   5|  0|  3| 0  4  0|  0|  17.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  4| 19   6  30  .433|  3|  1   3|  0|  4| 0  2  2|  0|  21.0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  1|  5| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 10 COX, Scott..........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  1|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 80  22 131  .443| 75|  2  11|  1| 31| 0 17  4|  0|  90.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 8.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  2  22  .682   Site: SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU (ELAINE MICHAELIS CRT)
   2  26  9  42  .405   Date: Jan 20, 2006   Attend: 3912   Time: 2 H 16M
   3  18  5  32  .406   Referees: TOM GIVEN, LES CALLES, K. MAETANI
   4  19  6  35  .371
                                         1   2   3   4 Total
                        Tie scores       1  29   9   5    44
                        Lead changes     0  11   2   1    14

NO. 2 COUGARS TO FACE GAUCHOS

The No. 2 Cougars will put their perfect record on the line this weekend with two matches against No. 8 UC Santa Barbara in the Smith Fieldhouse Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. BYU (4-0 overall, 2-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) is tied for first in the MPSF while the Gauchos are 2-3 overall and 1-1 in league play.

"I'm happy with our record," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "But we need to keep playing better. We will need to be on top of our game this weekend. Our passing will be a big factor."

BYU swept Cal State Northridge last weekend to get off to a 2-0 start in league play. The Cougars are off to their best start since the 2001 team began that season 10-0. Russell Holmes averaged 2.5 kills and 2.5 blocks per game as he helped lead BYU to back-to-back 3-1 wins. Jonathan Charette had a big match on Friday, recording 14 kills, six blocks and five digs. As a team, the Cougars had 24.0 blocks, a school rally-scoring record. Ivan Perez got hot in the second match, tying his season high with 21 kills.

Holmes is hitting .500 for the season and is averaging 1.87 blocks per game. Perez leads the team in kills per game at 4.26 while Victor Batista is averaging 2.93 and hitting .473. Brian Rowley leads the team in digs at 2.27 per game.

Santa Barbara is led by Evan Patak, who paces the team with 5.56 kills per game and has terrorized opposing teams with his dangerous serve. He has recorded 17 aces in just 18 games. Aaron Richman is second in kills at 3.00 per game and Theo Brunner is hitting a team-high .359.

"Evan Patak is a very good player," Peterson said. "We need to slow him down and not let him control us with his serve. We need to contain him and not let anyone else have a big match."

The Gauchos hosted the UCSB Elephant Bar Tournament at the beginning of the season and went 1-2, with a win over UC Irvine and losses against UCLA and Cal State Northridge. Last weekend, Santa Barbara hosted Hawai`i and split with the Warriors.

BYU owns an 18-15 lead in the all-time series between the Cougars and Gauchos. BYU is 11-6 at home during the series, including a loss in the MPSF Tournament last season and the Cougars earning back-to-back sweeps in 2004.

No. 2 BYU COUGARS (4-0, 2-0 MPSF) vs. No. 8 UC SANTA BARBARA GAUCHOS (2-3, 1-1 MPSF)

Friday and Saturday, Jan. 20 and 21, 2006 - 7 p.m. MST

Smith Fieldhouse (5,000) - Provo, Utah

Coaches: BYU, Tom Peterson (76-21 in fourth year, 328-151 overall)

UC Santa Barbara, Ken Preston (475-336 in 27th year, same overall)

Series: BYU leads, 18-15, including last season's split in Santa Barbara, Calif. and the Gauchos win in Provo in the MPSF Tournament

TV: Friday: BYUTV and CougarTV, live

Saturday: CougarTV, live - Visit www.byucougars.com for information