Balanced Attack Leads to Sweep

PROVO -- With the offense clicking and several players getting into the action, BYU defeated Cal Baptist 3-0 (30-22, 30-26, 30-27) Saturday to complete the weekend sweep of the Lancers. The Cougars are now 2-0 to start the season while Cal Baptist has fallen to 0-3.

"Everyone hit much better tonight which allowed us to distribute the ball well," BYU coach Peterson said. "They weren't able to key on any single player. I thought we passed pretty which and that let's us do a lot of things."

With Rob Neilson setting the offense, the Cougars hit .457 (51-9-92) for the night compared to .263 (45-19-99) for the Lancers. Taylor Evans had a career-high hitting percentage of .636 (15-1-22) to go with a team-high 15 kills. Ivan Perez was second on the squad with 12 kills.

Russell Holmes and Victor Batista combined to give BYU a dominant presence in the middle as Holmes had eight kills and hit .538 and Batista had nine and hit .562. First year starter Jonathan Charette showed improvement from Friday night, getting six kills while hitting .429 (6-0-14).

Seidu Ajanako had a match-high 16 kills and Corey Spence had 10 kills, the only other Lancer with double digits.

In the first game, BYU jumped out to a 5-2 lead behind the hard serving of Batista, who served three consecutive points. The Cougars maintained the lead the rest of the way but Cal Baptist made a run, coming within a point at 21-20. A kill by Evans got BYU back on track and the Cougars coasted the rest of the way, winning the game 30-22. The story of the game was BYU's unstoppable attack.

The Cougars hit .607 (18-1-28), the best single-game team percentage since March 26, 2005 against Long Beach State when BYU hit .615 (18-2-26) in a 30-22 game-two win. Batista was perfect for the game, registering five kills on five attempts.

Cal Baptist took control early in the second game, getting its first lead of the night at 4-3 and increasing the lead to 12-9 on a kill by Ajanako. BYU stormed back, scoring four-straight points to lead 13-12. The score was tied at 14-all before the Cougars went on another 4-0 run to put the game out of reach for the Lancers. BYU's offense was again efficient as the Cougars hit .448 (16-3-29) on their way to a 30-26 win. Holmes was perfect during the game, registering four kills on four attempts. Evans also had four kill in the second game.

Game three was more of the same as BYU jumped out to an early lead, which it maintained throughout the game. The Cougars hit .343 (17-5-35) and Evans led the way with seven kills on nine attempts. BYU won the game 30-27.

The Cougars will jump into Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play next weekend with two home matches against Cal State Northridge. The matches will be played Friday and Saturday night at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse and can be seen live on CougarTV.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
       CBU Lancers vs BYU Cougars (Jan 07, 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......  3| 16   6  33  .303|  0|  0   7|  0|  8| 0  1  0|  0|  16.5
 3  GUNTHOR, Urs........  3|  9   0  18  .500|  0|  0   2|  1|  0| 0  2  0|  0|  10.0
 4  SPENCE, Corey.......  3| 10   6  21  .190|  0|  0   1|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  0|  10.0
 6  SUN, Yukai..........  3|  2   4   7 -.286|  1|  1   4|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|   3.5
 11 PLUNKETT, Eric......  3|  0   0   1  .000| 39|  1   0|  0|  3| 0  1  1|  2|   1.5
 23 VETTER, Romain......  3|  7   1  14  .429|  1|  0   1|  0|  2| 0  0  1|  0|   7.0
 7  SCOTIA, Dan.........  2|  1   2   5 -.200|  0|  0   0|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 12 HAGSTROM, Tyler.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  1|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 45  19  99  .263| 42|  2  15|  2| 25| 0  5  2|  2|  49.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 2.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13  6  32  .219   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  14  7  30  .233   CBU Lancers......... (0) 22 26 27  0-3; NAIA
   3  18  6  37  .324   BYU Cougars......... (3) 30 30 30  2-0;0-0 MPFS
    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..  3|  6   0  14  .429|  2|  0   5|  0|  4| 0  2  0|  0|   7.0
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  3| 12   6  24  .250|  0|  1   3|  0|  6| 0  2  0|  0|  14.0
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  3|  8   1  13  .538|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  3  1|  0|   9.5
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  3|  1   0   2  .500| 41|  0   1|  0|  9| 0  1  1|  1|   1.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  3|  9   0  16  .562|  1|  0   4|  1|  2| 0  3  0|  1|  10.5
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  3| 15   1  22  .636|  1|  1   1|  1|  3| 0  2  0|  0|  17.0
 5  CONGELLIERE, Brian..  1|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  4| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 10 COX, Scott..........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  3|  0   1   1-1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 51   9  92  .457| 49|  2  15|  2| 28| 0 13  2|  2|  59.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 6.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  18  1  28  .607   Site: Smith Fieldhouse BYU (Elaine Michaelis)
   2  16  3  29  .448   Date: Jan 07, 2006   Attend: 2598   Time: 1H 30M
   3  17  5  35  .343   Referees: Maile Jewkes, Tom Given, Maetani
                                         1   2   3 Total
                        Tie scores       1   6   3    10
                        Lead changes     0   2   0     2