No. 2 Cougars Still Perfect With Sweep of Gauchos

PROVO -- The undefeated No. 2 Cougars completed the weekend against No. 8 UC Santa Barbara Saturday with a three-game sweep (30-24, 30-28, 30-24) to improve 6-0 overall and 4-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

"We played more consistent tonight, which landed us on top," said Coach Tom Peterson. "We can't contribute the win to only one player, all of the guys put forth good effort."

Ivan Perez led BYU in kills with 19, Rob Neilson had 43 assists, and Victor Batista had six block assists.

As a team, BYU hit .337 (50-15-104) and had 20 blocks and 25 digs. Neilson had a match-high 6 digs while Batista added 5.

Evan Patak dominated for the Gauchos with 18 kills and almost half of the kill attempts, while the team hit .214. Max Klineman had 41 of 46 assists and Aaron Richman had seven digs on the night.

Santa Barbara was once again disadvantaged by the crowd of 3,592 fans. Peterson commented on home court advantage, "We have had the home court advantage every game this season, next week we'll have to step it up."

BYU started the match with an easy 30-24 win in game one. The Cougars dominated the entire game and had their biggest lead at game point. Perez went 8-for-12 on the attack while Batista went 5-for-8. The Gauchos trickled off at the end when BYU put it away with a kill by Neilson.

Game two was a scary one for Cougar fans while they were down until game point when they achieved their first lead, then put it away after an error by the Gauchos (30-28). Santa Barbara held an average of three points ahead the entire game, but the Cougars came out on top in the end. In the fifth rally of the game, the crowd went wild as the ball went off the ceiling into deep court where Perez saved it with a free ball to land in the middle of Gauchos players, staring in amazement.

BYU led all of game three (30-24), achieving an eight-point lead late in the game at 27-19. Perez had six kills in game three, while Santa Barbara's leading hitter, Patak, had only four.

The Cougars will travel to Los Angeles, Calif. next Thursday and Saturday to take on the No. 5 UCLA Bruins.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
    #8 UCSB Gauchos vs #2 BYU Cougars (Jan 21, 2006 at SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU)
    UCSB Gauchos           |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  Godinez, Jared......  2|  3   4  11 -.091|  1|  0   3|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0|   3.0
 4  Berman, Bryan.......  3|  4   4  13  .000|  0|  2   1|  0|  5| 0  0  0|  0|   6.0
 8  Fisher, Michael.....  3| 10   0  15  .667|  0|  0   2|  3|  3| 0  2  0|  0|  11.0
 11 Klineman, Max.......  3|  0   0   2  .000| 41|  0   1|  0|  2| 0  0  2|  0|   0.0
 21 Brunner, Theo.......  3|  6   2  13  .308|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   6.5
 40 Patak, Evan.........  3| 18  13  43  .116|  1|  0   2|  0|  2| 0  2  0|  0|  19.0
 5  Wilson, Drew........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  Jensen, Dane........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  2|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 12 Zakarian, Armen.....  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  6| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 33 Richman, Aaron......  3|  5   1   6  .667|  0|  0   1|  0|  7| 0  1  0|  0|   5.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 46  24 103  .214| 46|  2  11|  4| 32| 0  6  2|  0|  51.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 3.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  5  38  .316   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  17 10  32  .219   UCSB Gauchos........ (0) 24 28 24  2-5, 1-3  MPFS
   3  12  9  33  .091   BYU Cougars......... (3) 30 30 30  6-0; 4-0  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|  9   2  20  .350|  0|  1   2|  0|  3| 0  3  0|  0|  11.5
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  3| 19   3  28  .571|  1|  0   2|  0|  3| 0  3  0|  0|  20.5
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  3|  7   2  14  .357|  2|  0   1|  0|  2| 0  4  1|  0|   9.0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  3|  1   0   3  .333| 43|  0   0|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  1|   1.0
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  3|  8   3  22  .227|  2|  1   3|  0|  5| 0  6  1|  0|  12.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  3|  5   5  16  .000|  1|  2   4|  1|  2| 0  3  1|  0|   8.5
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  4| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 10 COX, Scott..........  1|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 18 GOMES, Rodrigo......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   0.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 50  15 104  .337| 49|  4  12|  2| 25| 0 20  3|  1|  64.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 10.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  21  4  40  .425   Site: SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU (ELAINE MICHAELIS)
   2  12  6  26  .231   Date: Jan 21, 2006   Attend: 3592   Time: 1H 35M
   3  17  5  38  .316   Referees: LES CALLES, MAILE JEWKES