Win Streak Extended to Eight Straight, Tied for League Lead

PROVO -- Winning its eighth straight match, the fourth-ranked BYU men's volleyball team climbed in to a tie with league leading Hawaii on Saturday after sweeping No. 11 Stanford for the second straight night, 38-36, 30-28, 30-25.

With the win, the Cougars, who have not lost a single game over a four-match period, improve to 9-3 overall on the season and 7-1 in MPSF action. The Cardinal dropped to 5-11 overall and 3-9 in league play.

"Hopefully this means we're getting better," BYU head coach Tom Peterson said. "This was a good test for us. We did a couple things well tonight. We passed well and we hit well. Serving is just, well, if we serve like we did tonight when we go to Irvine, we won't win.

The Cougars hit .484 on the night, connecting on a three game season-high 74 kills on 124 attempts. BYU started the match on a blistering pace, racking up 31 kills on 43 attempts (.605) with just five errors.

Serving, however, was another matter. The Cougars tallied 23 service errors on the night, including 13 in the first game.

"If we would have kept up the pace in game one, I think we would have set an NCAA record," Peterson said. "But then we had only three errors in game two and then seven in the last game. It's driving me nuts. It drove the crowd nuts in game one. I think the crowd started cheering every time we made a serve in that first game.

In game one, the Cougars took a 30-29 lead after Fernando Pesso recorded his ninth of 10 kills in the game. BYU then committed four straight service errors on game-point opportunities, extending the game through a log jam at 33 each. The two teams continued to trade points through 36-36 when the Cougars took advantage of a Stanford error to claim a 37-36 lead. Jonathan Alleman ended the game with his team-leading 10th kill in the game. Alleman hit a sizzling .750, connection on 10-of-12 attempts with just one error.

In game two, the Cougars fell behind early, but a quick rally gave BYU a 19-17 lead after Alleman picked up his only block of the night. BYU grabbed a three-point advantage at 25-22 on a Cardinal attack error, but Stanford continued to fight back. Pessoa picked up one of his six kills in the game to give the Cougars a 29-27 lead. After a BYU ball handling error and a Stanford timeout, Pessoa notched another of his match-high 20 kills to give the Cougars a 30-28 victory.

In game three, Stanford jumped out to an 11-7 lead, but the Cougars pulled off one of the longest runs of the season. Alleman kicked off an 8-0 run with back-to-back kills, and tied the game at 11-11 with his third straight kill. Joe Hillman got in to the thick of things, connecting on one of his 18 kills on the night to give BYU the 12-11 lead, which the Cougars would never give up. David Vogel's kill ended the BYU scoring streak and cut the lead to 15-12. After the two teams traded serves, BYU took a four-point lead at 28-24 when Victor Batista recorded his only block of the match. He followed that up with a kill, giving BYU a 29-24 lead. Two serves later, Alleman ended the match with his 17th kill of the night.

"After we fell behind in game three, we started to transition very well," Peterson said. "We dug a few balls, we funneled the ball through our defense and we were able to get points out of our transition play. I thought we were due when we started to make a run. Maybe that's the bottom line. I thought we were due."

Pessoa led the Cougars with 20 kills on the night, committing just two errors on 27 attempts. Hillman racked up 18 kills on 27 attempts without a single error. Alleman contributed 17 kills, while Aaron Ferre, who was making only his second career started chipped in 10 kills. William Clayton tallied a team-high 12 kills for the Cardinal while Vogel added 10 kills.

Having completed a four-match home stand, the Cougars will next travel to UC Irvine on Thursday, Feb. 26 and Saturday, Feb. 28.

For detailed boxscore, click the pdf link above.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                        2004 BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
   Stanford University vs BRIGHAM YOUNG (Feb 21, 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|  6   1  14  .357|  0|  0   0|  1|  1| 0  3  1|  0|   7.5
 2  AHLFELDT, Chris.....  3|  3   2  11  .091|  1|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   3.5
 5  VOGEL, David........  3| 10   6  25  .160|  5|  1   3|  1|  6| 0  0  1|  0|  11.0
 7  CLAYTON, William....  3| 12   1  16  .688|  1|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|  12.5
 17 HANSEN, Kevin.......  3|  6   1  11  .455| 34|  2   2|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  0|   8.0
 18 BOMHACK, Patrick....  3|  8   0  18  .444|  0|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  3  1|  0|   9.5
 3  MANOV, Nick.........  3|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  1|  0|   0.0
 9  JACOBS, Jeremy......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  9| 0  0  0|  1|   0.0
 11 LINDBERG, Brian.....  3|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 45  11  97  .351| 41|  3   9|  3| 30| 0  8  4|  1|  52.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  2  30  .500   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  16  4  37  .324   Stanford University. 36 28 25  5-11,3-9 MPSF
   3  12  5  30  .233   BRIGHAM YOUNG....... 38 30 30  9-3,7-1 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|  3   2   6  .167| 64|  1   7|  0|  7| 0  1  1|  2|   4.5
 6  FERRE, Aaron........  3| 10   1  15  .600|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 1  2  0|  0|  12.0
 11 HILLMAN, Joe........  3| 18   0  27  .667|  1|  1   3|  0|  5| 0  0  0|  0|  19.0
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  3| 17   4  30  .433|  3|  0   5|  1|  4| 0  1  1|  0|  17.5
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  3| 20   2  27  .667|  1|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  0  0|  0|  20.0
 18 BATISTA, Victor.....  3|  6   5  19  .053|  0|  1   4|  0|  3| 1  0  2|  2|   8.0
 8  HYTE, David.........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 OLMSTEAD, Shawn.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  2|  8| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 20 EVANS, TAYLOR.......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 74  14 124  .484| 70|  3  23|  3| 34| 2  4  4|  4|  81.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  31  5  43  .605   Site: Brigham Young Univ. (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  22  5  44  .386   Date: Feb 21, 2004   Attend: 1711   Time: 1H 50M
   3  21  4  37  .459   Referees: TOM GIVEN, LES CALLES