Perez Leads Cougars Past Lancers

PROVO -- With Ivan Perez leading the way, BYU began the 2006 season with a 3-1 (30-26, 26-30, 30-27, 30-26) win over the Cal Baptist Lancers Friday in the Smith Fieldhouse. The Cougars are 1-0 on the season while the Lancers are 0-2.

"I thought we made some exciting plays. I think we can be a good team if we can be consistent," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "With this team we are more experienced than last season. We still make lots of errors but I hope it is just first of the year stuff."

Perez, a second-team All-American in 2005 as a freshman, registered a match-best 21 kills while hitting .381 (21-5-42) and adding seven digs and three blocks. Taylor Evans added 14 kills while Victor Batista had 10 kills and a match-high seven blocks.

"He's kind of our power guy," Peterson said of Perez. "I wish we had gone to him a little more even. For us to be a great team we have to win it by a committee. We can't rely on Ivan to win matches."

As a team, BYU hit .321 (62-20-131) and had 12.5 blocks and 43 digs. Brian Rowley led the defense with a match-high 11 digs.

Corey Spence had a solid match for Cal Baptist, leading four players in double digit kills with 19. Urs Gunthor had 14 kills, Seidu Ajanako had 13 and Romain Vetter had 11. The Lancers lost one of their top players, Shamsu Awudu, on the first play of the match to an ankle injury. Tyler Hagstrom led the team with 10 digs.

Cal Baptist hit .306 (67-23-144) for the match and had 43 digs and 7.5 blocks.

BYU took the first game behind a balanced attack as four players had three kills, including Jonathan Charette, Perez, Batista and Evans. After a slow start hitting, BYU hit .407 (15-4-27) and made big plays at the net, registering 5.0 blocks compared to 1.0 block for Cal Baptist. The game was a back-and-forth battle before BYU went on a 7-4 run to close it out with a 30-26 win.

The second was another see-saw battle as the teams traded points throughout. With the score tied at 23, Cal Baptist took control to claim the 30-26 win. Romain Vetter got in on two key blocks and added a kill to spark the rally. Ajanako and Spence each had four kills on seven error-less swings to lead the Lancers in the game two while Batista and Perez each had four kills for BYU.

The Cougars got back on track in the third, taking the lead at 2-1 on a kill by Perez and maintaining an advantage the rest of the way. BYU led by as many as four at 15-11 and eventually won 30-27. Perez was the catalyst for the Cougars in the third, registering seven kills on 12 swings while Rowley had four digs.

The Lancers kept the fourth game tight, leading at 11-10 and staying within a point until 26-25. Perez proved too powerful, though, tallying seven kills on 11 attempts without an error to lead BYU to the 30-26 win, clinching the match.

The match was the first of two meetings between the teams as the Lancers and Cougars will square off again Saturday night.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
       CBU Lancers vs BYU Cougars (Jan 06, 2006 at Smith Fieldhouse BYU)
    CBU Lancers            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  AJANAKO, Seidu......  4| 13   7  38  .158|  2|  0   6|  0|  7| 0  2  0|  0|  14.0
 3  GUNTHOR, Urs........  4| 14   2  26  .462|  0|  2   6|  0|  3| 0  1  0|  0|  16.5
 4  SPENCE, Corey.......  4| 19   4  31  .484|  0|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  1  0|  0|  19.5
 5  AWUDU, Shamsu.......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 11 PLUNKETT, Eric......  4|  2   0   3  .667| 51|  0   3|  0|  5| 1  0  2|  4|   3.0
 23 VETTER, Romain......  4| 11   5  22  .273|  1|  0   0|  0|  2| 1  4  0|  0|  14.0
 6  SUN, Yukai..........  4|  8   5  23  .130|  2|  0   6|  0|  9| 0  3  0|  0|   9.5
 9  BUEHRING, Dan.......  2|  0   0   1  .000|  6|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 12 HAGSTROM, Tyler.....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  3| 10| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 41 ANDERS, Bryan.......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 67  23 144  .306| 63|  2  24|  3| 43| 2 11  2|  4|  76.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  6  32  .344   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  17  3  34  .412   CBU Lancers......... (1) 26 30 27 26  0-1 NAIA
   3  19  6  41  .317   BYU Cougars......... (3) 30 26 30 30  1-0;0-0 MPFS
   4  14  8  37  .162
    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|  8   5  22  .136|  0|  0   2|  0|  3| 0  2  1|  1|   9.0
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  4| 21   5  42  .381|  2|  0   3|  0|  7| 0  3  0|  0|  22.5
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  4|  6   3  14  .214|  2|  0   1|  0|  4| 1  4  0|  0|   9.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  4|  3   1   5  .400| 54|  0   1|  0|  9| 0  5  0|  0|   5.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  4| 10   2  19  .421|  1|  2   5|  0|  2| 0  7  1|  0|  15.5
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  4| 14   4  29  .345|  0|  1   4|  2|  6| 0  1  0|  0|  15.5
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0| 11| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   0.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 62  20 131  .321| 60|  3  16|  2| 43| 1 23  2|  1|  77.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 12.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  15  4  27  .407   Site: Smith Fieldhouse BYU (Elaine Michaelis)
   2  16  8  37  .216   Date: Jan 06, 2006   Attend: 2046   Time: 2H 5M
   3  18  4  38  .368   Referees: Tom Given, Les Calles, Maetani
   4  13  4  29  .310
                                         1   2   3   4 Total
                        Tie scores      16  21   2   9    48
                        Lead changes     4   6   0   5    15