PROVO -- After winning an exciting match Friday night against No. 4 Stanford, the BYU women's volleyball team swept Texas A&M Corpus Christi, 30-22, 30-15, 30-18 Saturday in the BYU Molten Classic.

"We played an emotional game last night and we had a short turn around, but we played well," said BYU head coach Jason Watson. "We have a little more time to prepare for our match tonight so we feel a little more confident we will be ready to play."

Marisa Vandersteen got the first start of her career and made good use of it by recording a career-high six blocks. The 6-foot-1 redshirt freshman added three kills with a .600 hitting percentage. Sophomore Bryn Porter also had a strong match with 11 kills, tying her career high, in addition to nine digs to set a new career high.

Erica Lott led BYU with 13 kills. The Cougars had a .330 hitting percentage while holding the Islanders to .034. BYU libero Janvier Beaumont had 14 digs in the match.

"Our libero (Janvier Beaumont) played really well and allowed Amy (Schlauder) to run a balanced attack," said Watson.

In the first game, TAMCC kept up with the Cougars, leading until midway through the match. BYU took its first lead, 15-14, on a Lindsy Hartsock kill. After some key blocks by Hartsock and Vandersteen, BYU pulled ahead to win 30-22.

The second game was a defensive show by the Cougars who posted five blocks to the Islanders' zero. On offense, Erica Lott led the team with five kills in the game. The Cougars won the game, 30-15, on a Porter ace.

BYU stepped up the defense in the third game to record 20 digs and another win, 30-18.

Junior Catherine Parker made her first appearance of the season for the Cougars, recording three kills on six swings.

Vandersteen said she felt great getting the start.

"I felt confident because my team was behind me," Vandersteen said. "They all believed in me."

BYU, now 5-0, will conclude the Molten Classic Saturday night at 7 p.m. against Virginia Commonwealth University.

No. 4 Stanford Sweeps VCU

PROVO -- The No. 4 Stanford Cardinal (2-1) began Saturday at the Molten Classic by beating the Virginia Commonwealth Rams (3-2) in three games, 30-28, 30-17 and 30-16.

"Virginia Commonwealth is a good team," said Stanford head coach John Dunning. "They made the NCAA Tournament two years ago, and I knew it was going to be a good match for us."

In the first game, Stanford and VCU battled back and forth. The Rams had the lead 18-16 but then Stanford took a timeout and regained the lead 27-22. VCU came back with a 5-2 run but could not overtake Stanford, falling 30-28.

"I think our team came out still reacting to last night," said Dunning, who's team fell to BYU in four games on Friday night. "The game last night was very emotional and to turn around and play 11 hours later was hard."

Stanford quickly found its form and went on to take games two and three winning 30-17 and 30-16, respectively. The Cardinal had a balanced attack with sophomores Cynthia Barboza dishing out 15 kills and Foluke Akinradewo adding 13.

"Cynthia turned it around from last night," said Dunning. "BYU put up good blocks on her, and she showed up this morning and turned it around."

VCU was led by Ludmila Francescatto, who had a match-high 17 kills.

The Rams will finish their Molten Classic play Saturday night when they go up against tournament-host BYU. Stanford will play Texas A&M CC for its final match of the event.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                                  BYU Cougars
   Texas A&M-CC Islande vs BYU Cougars (Sep 02, 2006 at Smith Fieldhouse BYU)
    Texas A&M-CC Islande   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  Araujo, Paula.......  3|  6   0  11  .545| 23|  1   2|  0|  7| 0  2  1|  6
 4  Newton, Eileen......  3|  7   5  21  .095|  1|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  2  0|  0
 5  Paslay, Lauren......  3|  3   3  15  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  3  0|  0
 11 Feliz, Christie.....  3| 11  11  41  .000|  1|  4   3|  1|  4| 0  0  0|  0
 12 Marcengo, Carol.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  2|  1   1|  1|  8| 0  0  0|  1
 13 Thigpen, Ashley.....  3|  1   1   9  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  1|  0
 3  North, Laura........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  2|  0   0|  0| 11| 0  0  0|  0
 8  Elsberry, Lynn......  3|  3   7  21 -.190|  0|  0   0|  0|  3| 0  0  1|  0
 10 Munoz, Amanda.......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  1|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 31  27 118  .034| 29|  6   7|  3| 40| 0  8  3|  7
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1   9 10  38 -.026   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  12 12  43  .000   Texas A&M-CC Islande (0) 22 15 18  1-5; 0-0; Southland
   3  10  5  37  .135   BYU Cougars......... (3) 30 30 30  5-0; 0-0; MWC
    BYU Cougars            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 7  WILSON, Kim.........  3|  4   4  13  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  2  1|  0
 8  VANDERSTEEN, Marisa.  3|  3   0   5  .600|  0|  1   0|  0|  2| 0  6  1|  0
 10 LOTT, Erica.........  3| 13   1  25  .480|  1|  0   0|  0|  5| 0  4  2|  0
 13 PORTER, Bryn........  3| 11   5  33  .182|  2|  1   4|  4|  9| 0  1  0|  0
 14 HARTSOCK, Lindsy....  2|  5   1   8  .500|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 1  1  0|  0
 15 SCHLAUDER, Amy......  3|  4   0   6  .667| 36|  0   0|  0|  8| 0  3  0|  1
 2  BEAUMONT, Janvier...  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  1| 14| 0  0  0|  0
 4  HANSEN, Ashton......  2|  3   1   7  .286|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  3  0|  0
 11 PINEGAR, Annie......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  1   0|  1|  5| 0  0  0|  0
 12 PARKER, Catherine...  1|  3   0   6  .500|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 20 JUDKINS, Jenna......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  5| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 46  12 103  .330| 42|  3   5|  6| 50| 1 20  4|  1
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  14  5  36  .250   Site: Smith Fieldhouse BYU (Elaine Michaelis)
   2  13  2  29  .379   Date: Sep 02, 2006   Attend: 263   Time: 1h 22m
   3  19  5  38  .368   Referees: Maile Jewkes, Daphne Nelson, Karen Marshall

PROVO -- The BYU women's volleyball team will host the BYU Molten Classic this Friday and Saturday in the Smith Fieldhouse, marking the Cougars' home debut. With matches against preseason No. 4 Stanford (1-0), Virginia Commonwealth (2-1) and Texas A&M Corpus Christi (2-1), the Cougars (3-0) will look to continue their solid start to the season and make some noise on the national scene.

"We're looking forward to our home tournament," said BYU head coach Jason Watson. "Last weekend enabled us to identify some areas we need to upgrade. This weekend will provide us an opportunity to measure our improvement in a competitive tournament."

The event will kickoff on Friday at 4 p.m. with Virginia Commonwealth facing Texas A&M Corpus Christi. BYU will take on the Stanford Cardinal, ranked No. 4 in the nation in preseason polls, on Friday night at 7 p.m., a match that will be broadcast on BYU-TV. Saturday's matches begin at 10 a.m. with VCU vs. Stanford and then continue with BYU vs. Texas A&M CC at 12 p.m., Stanford vs. Texas A&M CC at 5 p.m. and then BYU vs. VCU at 7 p.m. to end the tournament.

Preseason tournaments hosted by BYU have been a tradition since 1977. With the exception of two years, 1993 and 1999, the Cougars have hosted at least one tournament each year. Although the name of the marquee event has evolved over the years from the BYU Preview to the BYU Invitational to the BYU Mizuno Classic to the current BYU Molten Classic, the premise has always been the same -- to gather top teams from around the country for intense competition. BYU has now hosted 33 tournaments in 27 years, winning 18 titles along the way. A total of 36 players have won 44 all-tournament awards including 13 MVP selections.

There have been many Cougar highlights, but one of the top moments in BYU tournament history was when BYU upended No. 1 Stanford before defeating No. 2 Long Beach State to take the 2000 tournament title.

BYU began the 2006 season in fine form at the UCF Fall Invitational hosted by the University of Central Florida last weekend. The Cougars brought home the tournament title with three straight sweeps of Florida International (30-28, 30-26, 30-24), UCF (30-25, 30-16, 30-18) and Stetson (30-13, 30-20, 30-25). BYU hit .348 for the week while holding opponents to a .158 percentage.

Junior rightside hitter Erica Lott took MVP honors as she led the team with 15 kills against UCF and 18 against Stetson on .556 hitting. Senior Lindsy Hartsock joined Lott on the All-Tournament team as she hit .593 for the weekend and averaged 1.62 blocks per game.