Cougars Take Tritons in Three

PROVO -- BYU continued its volleyball dominance over UC San Diego Friday night, handing the Tritons their 13th loss in the series with a 30-28, 30-28, 30-27 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation contest in Provo. The third-ranked Cougars, now 6-1 on the season, hold a 13-0 series record over the Tritons, who are now 0-6 in the conference and 3-7 overall.

Although the BYU swept UC San Diego in three games Friday in front of 2,488 roaring fans in the Smith Fieldhouse, head coach Tom Peterson says the team needs a lot of improvement before they have a chance at the national championship.

"It's not often you're unhappy with a win, but we did not play very well tonight," Peterson said. "We just had too many errors."

The Cougars did have 11 service errors and 16 attack errors as a team, but they registered less than UC San Diego's 17 service errors and 25 attack errors. UC San Diego's Jim Waller recorded a match-high 15 kills, and overall the Tritons recorded more kills, assists and digs than the Cougars, but it wasn't enough to give them the edge.

Blocking made the big difference in the match--the Cougars out-blocked the Tritons 14.0 to 4.0. Junior middle blocker Chris Gorny played a key role with seven blocks and three digs.

On offense, BYU's Michael Burke led the Cougars with ten errorless kills on 17 attempts (.588) and added one ace, three digs and five blocks for the team. Burke's .529 hitting percentage for his sophomore season is the best in the MPSF.

"I have to give the credit mostly to Carlos (Moreno)," Burke said. "His ball placement is impeccable, and he makes it easy to play well."

In both games one and two, the Cougars took fairly large leads but let the Tritons fight back to close 29-28 spreads before the Cougars earned their final points. In game two, Gorny served the Cougars through a four-point run to take an 18-12 lead, the largest of the match. The Tritons did not register a single block in game two, however, and BYU took the game. At the end of game two, Burke had recorded a blistering .727 percentage with eight errorless kills on 13 attempts.

"Burke keeps getting better and better, but we've got to put it together as a whole team," Peterson said.

The Cougars had their best team hitting percentage in game two at .433, but seemed to ease off in game three. Peterson attributed the decline to bad substitution decisions on his part that threw off the team momentum.

Game three was closer than the other two, but the Cougars always had the lead. In a role changeup, setter Moreno took a set from libero Fernando Pessoa, slamming down a mid-court kill to give the Cougars a 27-24 lead. UC San Diego made a comeback attempt assisted by two kills from Waller to bring the Tritons' deficit within one at 28-27, but a kill from Gorny and an attack error off a Moreno serve ended the game at 30-27.

The Cougars and Tritons will compete again Saturday night, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse.

Volleyball Box Score
                        2003 BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
       UC San Diego vs Brigham Young (Feb 07, 2003 at Brigham Young Univ)
    UC San Diego           |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2  WALLER, Jim.........  3| 15  12  37  .081|  0|  1   3|  0|  4| 0  2  0|  0
 5  YOUNG, T.J..........  3| 11   5  19  .316|  1|  0   4|  1|  6| 0  0  0|  0
 6  KEYSER, Kevin.......  3|  6   1  13  .385|  1|  1   2|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0
 10 TOREN, Adam.........  3|  6   4  11  .182|  0|  0   2|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 11 MORTIMER, Chris.....  3|  0   1   1-1.000|  0|  0   0|  2|  7| 0  0  0|  0
 17 RUPP, Andy..........  3|  9   1  14  .571|  1|  0   2|  0|  2| 0  3  1|  0
 3  URTON, Jeff.........  3|  5   1   8  .500|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0
 18 PERRINE, Eric.......  3|  1   0   2  .500| 46|  1   3|  0|  8| 0  1  1|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 53  25 105  .267| 49|  3  17|  3| 28| 0  8  2|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  18  6  32  .375   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  17  6  31  .355   UC San Diego........ 28 28 27  3-7, 0-6 MPSF
   3  18 13  42  .119   Brigham Young....... 30 30 30  6-1, 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
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  BURKE, Michael......  3| 10   0  17  .588|  0|  1   1|  0|  3| 0  5  2|  0
 5  MORENO, Carlos......  3|  4   1   7  .429| 36|  0   2|  1|  2| 1  2  2|  0
 6  GORNY, Chris........  3|  7   2  11  .455|  0|  0   1|  0|  3| 0  7  0|  0
 9  PAAL, Rafael........  2|  2   2   9  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  2| 0  3  1|  0
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  3| 10   5  19  .263|  1|  1   2|  0|  1| 0  4  1|  0
 18 SLABE, Luka.........  3|  5   4  18  .056|  0|  0   2|  1|  4| 0  2  1|  0
 1  PATTERSON, Casey....  1|  0   2   2-1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 4  HILLMAN, Joe........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 7  MAYOL, Jaime........  2|  5   0   8  .625|  0|  1   1|  1|  1| 0  3  1|  0
 8  HYTE, David.........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 15 OLMSTEAD, Shawn.....  2|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 43  16  91  .297| 41|  3  11|  3| 20| 1 26  8|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 14.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  14  6  31  .258   Site: Brigham Young Univ (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  18  5  30  .433   Date: Feb 07, 2003   Attend: 2488   Time: 1h 30m
   3  11  5  30  .200   Referees: TOM GIVEN, BURT FULLER, AARON YAMASHITA