Holmes and Charette Lead BYU Past USC

PROVO -- Behind the play of Jonathan Charette and Russell Holmes, the Cougars defeated USC 3-1 (30-24, 28-30, 30-27, 30-25) Friday night, snapping the Trojans four-match win streak. With the win BYU improved to 9-2 overall and 7-2 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation while USC fell to 7-5 and 4-3.

"Jonathan had a very nice match, both blocking and hitting," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "Russell is getting better all the time. He hit well tonight."

Charette had 13 kills, hit .364 and recorded a career-high seven blocks while Holmes had a season-high 12 kills, hit .526 and had seven blocks. Brian Rowley tied his career-high with 14 digs and Taylor Evans added 13 kills. Victor Batista and Ivan Perez were also in double-digits in kills with 10 and 11, respectively. As a team, BYU hit .262 (61-28-126) and had 39 digs and 12.0 blocks.

Juan Figueroa had a match-high 17 kills while Joao Grangeiro and Andrew Vernon added 12 and 11 kills, respectively. USC hit .191 (55-30-131) and had 11.5 blocks and 29 digs.

The Cougars used a balanced offensive attack and solid blocking to win game one 30-24. After trailing 1-0, BYU took the lead for good at 4-3 on a kill by Evans. From there, the Cougars built their lead to five at 19-14 on kills by Perez and Holmes and USC never got closer than three. Batista led BYU with five kills while Charette added three kills and three blocks. BYU hit .310 (15-6-29) and had 5.0 blocks while the Trojans hit just .143 and had 5.5 blocks.

Both teams struggled offensively in game two but USC made more plays and won 30-28. With the score tied at nine, the Trojans went up 11-9 on a hitting error by Charette and an ace by Mosko. USC took the momentum at that point and increased its lead to five at 25-20 before the Cougars made a rally to cut the lead to one at 27-26. Five of BYU's points during the rally came on Trojan errors. The Cougars also trailed by one at 29-28 but Figueroa came through for USC, pounding a kill to give the game to the Trojans. Vernon led USC with five kills while Holmes had four for BYU.

The Cougars regrouped in game three and came out on fire, building a 17-14 lead while getting 11 kills on 15 error-less swings. Setter Rob Neilson got everyone involved during the hot start, including Rowley, who recorded his first kill of the season as he set the ball off the top tape and it rolled over the net onto the floor. BYU cooled off from there but maintained its lead and was up 28-24 before USC scored three straight to get within one. After a BYU timeout, Batista recorded back-to-back kills to give the Cougars the win and the 2-1 lead for the match. Holmes was a perfect 3-of-3 and Batista and Charette added four kills each.

Game three was more of the same as BYU maintained the momentum throughout on its way to a 30-25 win. The Cougars took the lead at 8-7 on a kill by Charette and never looked back. Evans led BYU with five kills while Charette added four.

"We haven't played well on the second night lately so that will be a concern tomorrow," Peterson said. "We will need a good performance from everyone tomorrow."

The Cougars and the Trojans will play Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse. The match will be live on CougarTV.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
    #13 USC Trojans vs #2 BYU Cougars (Feb 10, 2006 at SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU)
    USC Trojans            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  C.J. Schellenberg...  4|  8   6  22  .091|  0|  0   6|  0|  1| 0  5  0|  0
 8  Andrew Vernon.......  4| 11   2  18  .500|  0|  0   1|  0|  2| 0  3  0|  0
 13 Juan Figueroa.......  4| 17  10  38  .184|  0|  1   3|  2|  3| 1  3  0|  0
 14 Joao Grangeiro......  4| 12  11  34  .029|  0|  0   4|  1|  6| 0  1  0|  0
 17 Matt Mosko..........  4|  6   0  14  .429|  0|  1   4|  0|  1| 0  7  0|  0
 18 Jimmy Killian.......  4|  1   0   2  .500| 52|  2   2|  0|  5| 0  2  0|  0
 6  Matt Pavlovich......  2|  0   1   3 -.333|  0|  0   3|  0|  2| 0  0  1|  0
 7  Luke Morris.........  4|  0   0   0  .000|  2|  0   0|  0|  9| 0  0  0|  0
 11 Gio Altamura........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 55  30 131  .191| 54|  4  24|  3| 29| 1 21  1|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  12  8  28  .143   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  15  8  37  .189   USC Trojans......... (1) 24 30 27 25  7-5; 4-3; MPSF
   3  15  7  36  .222   BYU Cougars......... (3) 30 28 30 30  9-2; 7-2; MPSF
   4  13  7  30  .200
    BYU Cougars            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  CHARETTE, Jonathan..  4| 13   5  22  .364|  0|  0   3|  0|  4| 0  7  1|  0
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  4| 11   9  27  .074|  1|  1   2|  1|  6| 0  1  0|  0
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  4| 12   2  19  .526|  0|  1   2|  0|  4| 0  7  1|  0
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  4|  0   2   4 -.500| 58|  0   2|  0|  4| 0  3  0|  0
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  4| 10   2  21  .381|  1|  0   4|  0|  1| 0  5  2|  0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  4| 13   6  28  .250|  0|  1   4|  2|  5| 0  1  0|  0
 1  CALA, Yosleyder.....  4|  1   2   3 -.333|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  4|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   0|  1| 14| 0  0  0|  0
 18 GOMES, Rodrigo......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  3|  0   0   1  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 61  28 126  .262| 60|  3  18|  4| 39| 0 24  4|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 12.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  15  6  29  .310   Site: SMITH FIELDHOUSE BYU (ELAINE MICHAELIS)
   2  12  8  31  .129   Date: Feb 10, 2006   Attend: 3263   Time: 2H 17M
   3  18  7  37  .297   Referees: TOM GIVEN, LES CALLES, MAETANI ; JA ; SH
   4  16  7  29  .310