LOS -- In its first five-game match of the year, BYU fell 3-2 to UCLA (30-26, 22-30, 30-25, 26-30, 17-19) at Pauley Pavillion Saturday, ending its undefeated start. The Cougars are now 7-1 overall and 5-1 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation while the Bruins improved to 5-4 overall and 1-2 in league play.

"We played really tentative for long periods of time," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "We didn't serve well and we couldn't get them out of system and we weren't in system as much as we needed to be."

After losing game four, BYU got out to a 6-4 lead in game five behind kills by Ivan Perez and Russell Holmes. UCLA scored four of the next five points to take the 8-7 lead. A Perez kill ended the run and the Cougars got back on top at 10-9. The Bruins scored the next two to go up 11-10 and then had their first match point at 14-13.

Jonathan Charette pounded a kill to tie the score and a UCLA hitting error gave BYU its only match point at 15-14. The Bruins managed to take the next two points to go up 16-15 and then the teams traded points until UCLA was up 18-17. The Cougars went to Perez off the Bruin serve but he was blocked and BYU was unable to regain control and the ball went out of bounds to give the Bruins the point and the win.

Perez led the Cougars in kills with 20 while Taylor Evans was second with 15. Victor Batista and Charette were also in double-digit kills, recording 11 and 10, respectively. BYU hit .273 (64-28-132) and had 11.5 blocks and 37 digs.

Steve Klosterman led UCLA with 16 kills and Damien Scott, Paul George and Nick Sheftic had 14 apeice. The Bruins hit .348 (72-24-138) and had 15.o blocks and 30 digs.

After Thursday's 3-1 win, BYU continued its strong play in game one on Saturday, defeating the Bruins 30-24. BYU's offense stalled, hitting just .032 (12-11-31) in the second game as the Cougars fell 22-30.

In game three, the Cougars got off to a slow start, falling behind 11-6. BYU quickly got back in control by going on a 6-1 run to tie the score at 12 and then going on to win 30-25 by taking advantage of several UCLA errors. The Cougars hit .429 (15-3-28) for the game.

The fourth game was close throughout but BYU managed to take several three point leads, the last at 17-14. UCLA managed to comeback and tie the score at 20 and take the lead for good at 25-23. The Bruins outscored the Cougars 5-3 to win the game at 30-26 and force a fifth game. BYU hit an impressive .522 (15-3-23) but UCLA was even better, hitting .594 (22-3-32).

BYU will return to Provo and play two matches against Pepperdine next weekend, Feb. 3 and 4 at 7 p.m. Friday's match will be broadcast live on BYUTV and both matches can be seen live on CougarTV.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
               BYU Cougars vs UCLA Bruins (Jan 28, 2006 at UCLA)
    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..  5| 10   6  20  .200|  1|  3   4|  0|  3| 0  5  3|  0|  15.5
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  5| 20   8  41  .293|  3|  1   3|  2|  8| 0  3  1|  0|  22.5
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  5|  7   3  15  .267|  0|  0   2|  1|  2| 1  6  0|  0|  11.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  5|  2   1   3  .333| 52|  0   2|  0|  5| 0  3  0|  0|   3.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  5| 11   3  24  .333|  2|  1   5|  0|  3| 0  4  1|  0|  14.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  5| 14   6  27  .296|  1|  0   5|  0|  8| 0  0  0|  0|  14.0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  5|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  4|  7| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 10 COX, Scott..........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 18 GOMES, Rodrigo......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  5|  0   1   2 -.500|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  5| 64  28 132  .273| 59|  5  22|  7| 37| 1 21  5|  0|  80.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1   9  5  22  .182   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  5  TEAM RECORDS
   2  12 11  31  .032   BYU Cougars......... (2) 30 22 30 26 17  7-1 (5-1)
   3  15  3  28  .429   UCLA Bruins......... (3) 26 30 25 30 19  5-4 (1-2)
   4  15  3  23  .522
   5  13  6  28  .250
    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.....  5|  3   0   6  .500| 60|  0   2|  0|  8| 0  4  2|  0|   5.0
 9  Steve Klosterman....  5| 16   4  30  .400|  2|  0   4|  1|  4| 1  3  1|  0|  18.5
 10 Damien Scott........  5| 14   6  26  .308|  2|  1   5|  0|  3| 2  2  0|  0|  18.0
 15 David Russell.......  5| 10   2  21  .381|  0|  4   6|  0|  2| 0  7  1|  0|  17.5
 21 Paul George.........  5| 14   8  27  .222|  2|  1   7|  3|  7| 0  2  0|  0|  16.0
 27 Nick Scheftic.......  5| 14   3  26  .423|  0|  1   7|  0|  1| 1  4  1|  0|  18.0
 1  Tony Ker............  5|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   1|  0|  4| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 2  Sean O'Malley.......  1|  1   1   2  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 4  Blake Taylor........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 23 Ryan Ratelle........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 32 Matt Wade...........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 33 Eric Chaghouri......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  5| 72  24 138  .348| 68|  7  32|  5| 30| 4 22  5|  0|  94.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 15.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  14  7  30  .233   Site: UCLA (Pauley Pavilion)
   2  13  3  24  .417   Date: Jan 28, 2006   Attend: 1750   Time: 2:13
   3  12  8  28  .143   Referees: Scott Hogue, Larry Schwartz
   4  22  3  32  .594
   5  11  3  24  .333

NO. 2 COUGARS HIT THE ROAD TO PLAY UCLA

PROVO -- The No. 2 Cougars, 6-0 overall and 4-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, will hit the road for the first time this season and play No. 6 UCLA, Thursday and Saturday, Jan. 26 and 28 in Pauley Pavillion. Both matches will begin at 7 p.m.

"This is the biggest weekend of the season so far," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "This will be our first time on the road and our first test away from the friendly confines of the Smith Fieldhouse. We need to win on the road. We cannot expect to win the league without winning on the road."

BYU picked up two MPSF wins by defeating UC Santa Barbara 3-1 and 3-0 last Friday and Saturday. In the first match, the Cougars got off to a hot start, getting 14 kills on their first 15 attempts to take a 25-12 lead. BYU won game one 30-17 and then lost game two and won the third. Trailing 25-20 in the fourth, the Cougars cut the lead to one but trailed 28-26, 29-28 and 30-29. Evans recorded a kill to tie the score at 30 and then a Gaucho hitting error gave BYU the lead. Victor Batista and Ivan Perez then blocked Evan Patak for the match-winning point.

The next night the Cougars swept Santa Barbara but only after another big comeback. Trailing 25-21 in game two, BYU outscored the Gauchos 9-3 to win the game and then go on to complete the sweep. Perez had 23 kill on Friday and 19 on Saturday to lead BYU. He was named the player of the week by the MPSF and the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

Perez continues to lead BYU in kills per game at 4.82 and is hitting .362. Batista is averaging 3.00 kills and 1.55 blocks while hitting .444. Russell Holmes is hitting a team-best .466 while also leading the team in blocks at 1.64 per game.

Paul George leads UCLA in kills at 3.65 per game while Jamie Diefenbach leads the Bruins in hitting percentage at .490. Diefenbach is also the team's top blocker, averaging 1.42 per game. UCLA is 4-3 overall and 0-1 in the MPSF and is currently on a two-match win streak. These matches will be the 37th and 38th in the history of the series, with the Bruins leading 24-12.

Both matches can be heard live on the internet. Visit www.uclabruins.com for more information. BYU will be back in Provo next weekend for two matches against Pepperdine, Feb. 3 and 4.