Perez and Evans Lead Cougars Past Gauchos

PROVO -- Taylor Evans and Ivan Perez recorded season-high kill totals to lead the Cougars past UC Santa Barbara 3-1 (30-17, 37-35, 23-30, 32-30) Friday and keep BYU's perfect record intact at 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. The Gauchos fell to 2-4 overall and 1-2 in the MPSF.

Perez had a season-high 23 kills and hit .472 while Evans had 19, a career and season high, and hit .433. It was the third time this season Perez has recorded more than 20 kills. Victor Batista and Jonathan Charette were the other two Cougars in double digits with 14 and 10, respectively. As a team, BYU hit .443 (80-22-131) and had 31 digs and 8.5 blocks.

"Our middles are very good so that opened things up for Taylor (Evans) and Ivan (Perez)," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "We passed really well and that opened things up for our offense."

Evan Patak had a match-high 29 kills while Bryan Berman had 14 and Theo Brunner had 10. The Gauchos hit .328 (71-26-137) and had 26 digs and 6.5 blocks.

BYU led the match 2-1 but trailed 25-20 in game four. The Cougars then scored four-straight points to cut the lead to 24-25, two on kills by Batista and Jonathan Charette and then on back-to-back Santa Barbara hitting errors. The teams then traded points until the score was 28-26 in favor of the Gauchos. A Santa Barbara service error cut the lead to one and Perez added a kill to tie the score. Patak and Batista then traded kills to keep the score tied and Patak added another to give the Gauchos their final lead. Evans then tied the score at 30 with a kill and Patak registered a hitting error to give BYU its first lead of the game at 31-30. On the next play, Perez and Batista blocked Patak to score the match-winning point.

"I hope that is a sign of our team's determination," Peterson said of BYU's game-four comeback. "That comeback is a sign of what we can do. It was indicative of what we did in 2004 when we came back to beat Long Beach in the championship. That feeling is contagious and I hope it catches on."

In that match, BYU defeated Long Beach State in five games after trailing 10-6 and 12-9. The Cougars won game five 19-17.

Charette, Perez and Evans had four kills apiece in game four as BYU hit .371 (19-6-35). Patak had nine kills but six hitting errors while Jared Godinez had seven kills and no errors on eight swings.

Game one belonged to the Cougars from the opening serve. After Holmes was dug on the first attempt of the match, BYU recorded a kill on 14-straight hitting attempts and built a 25-12 lead. The Cougars were hitting .933 at that point (14-0-15). BYU put the game away with a 6-0 run that started with a service error by Max Klineman. Batista then served five-consecutive points, including an ace and two kills by Perez, who connected on his first six attempts. Evans finished the game at 30-17 with a kill and was 5-of-5. For the game, BYU hit .682 (17-2-22) and limited the Gauchos to .250 (11-5-24). It was the biggest single-game margin of victory for the Cougars since they defeated Pacific 30-17 on March 12, 2005 in game one of a 3-1 loss.

The second game was close throughout and ended in a 37-35 Santa Barbara win. The game featured 29 tie scored and 12 lead changes. The Cougars led early on at 8-5 but the Gauchos came back with a 3-0 run to tie the score. From there, neither team led by more than one until Santa Barbara won the game. BYU led 29-28 but yielded consecutive points to the Gauchos. Trailing 30-31, the Cougars got back-to-back points on kills by Batista and Perez. It appeared that BYU registered a block on the next play for the game winner but the Cougars were called in the net. The teams then battled until the game was tied at 35 when the Gauchos scored on a hitting error by Jonathan Charette and then Batista and Neilson miss communicated on a set and the ball fell to the ground for the winning point. Perez led the Cougars with 10 kills while Patak had eight for the Gauchos.

Santa Barbara carried the momentum from its game two win into the third and jumped out to a 10-7 lead. BYU fought back to tie the score at 16 and then took the lead for good at 17-16 on a kill by Evans. The Cougars then scored the next four points, capped by another Evans kill, to take a 21-17 lead. BYU gradually increased its lead by capitalizing on Gaucho errors and won the game 30-23. Evans led the Cougars with seven kills while Batista added four kills and two blocks.

The attendance for the match was 3,912. It marks the 35th consecutive match with over 1,000 fans in attendance.

The Cougars and Gauchos will square off again Saturday night in the Fieldhouse at 7 p.m. The match can be seen live on CougarTV.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
        #8 UCSB vs #2 BYU Cougars (Jan 20, 2006 at SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU)
    UCSB                   |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4  Berman, Bryan.......  4| 14   4  21  .476|  0|  0   2|  0|  6| 0  3  0|  0|  15.5
 8  Fisher, Michael.....  4|  2   3  16 -.062|  0|  0   4|  0|  4| 0  2  0|  0|   3.0
 11 Klineman, Max.......  4|  1   0   2  .500| 49|  0   1|  0|  4| 0  1  0|  0|   1.5
 21 Brunner, Theo.......  4| 10   1  16  .562|  1|  0   2|  0|  0| 0  1  1|  0|  10.5
 33 Richman, Aaron......  3|  6   4  16  .125|  0|  0   0|  1|  0| 1  0  0|  0|   7.0
 40 Patak, Evan.........  4| 29  14  52  .288|  0|  1   9|  0|  3| 0  1  1|  0|  30.5
 3  Godinez, Jared......  4|  8   0  10  .800|  1|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   8.0
 5  Wilson, Drew........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  Jensen, Dane........  2|  1   0   1 1.000| 14|  0   0|  0|  4| 0  1  0|  0|   1.5
 12 Zakarian, Armen.....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  2|  0   0|  1|  4| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 Otte, Derek.........  1|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 22 Kennedy, David......  2|  0   0   2  .000|  1|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  0|   1.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 71  26 137  .328| 69|  1  19|  2| 26| 1 11  2|  0|  78.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 6.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  11  5  24  .250   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  21  5  37  .432   UCSB................ (1) 17 37 23 30  2-4; 1-2 MPSF
   3  18  7  37  .297   BYU Cougars......... (3) 30 35 30 32  5-0; 3-0 MPSF
   4  21  9  39  .308
    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| 10   6  23  .174|  0|  0   0|  0|  6| 0  2  0|  0|  11.0
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  4| 23   6  36  .472|  1|  0   2|  0|  6| 0  4  0|  0|  25.0
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  4|  9   2  16  .438|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  4  1|  0|  11.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  4|  5   0   5 1.000| 66|  0   0|  0|  7| 0  1  0|  0|   5.5
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  4| 14   2  21  .571|  2|  1   5|  0|  3| 0  4  0|  0|  17.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  4| 19   6  30  .433|  3|  1   3|  0|  4| 0  2  2|  0|  21.0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  1|  5| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 10 COX, Scott..........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  1|  0|   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 80  22 131  .443| 75|  2  11|  1| 31| 0 17  4|  0|  90.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 8.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  2  22  .682   Site: SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU (ELAINE MICHAELIS CRT)
   2  26  9  42  .405   Date: Jan 20, 2006   Attend: 3912   Time: 2 H 16M
   3  18  5  32  .406   Referees: TOM GIVEN, LES CALLES, K. MAETANI
   4  19  6  35  .371
                                         1   2   3   4 Total
                        Tie scores       1  29   9   5    44
                        Lead changes     0  11   2   1    14