Long Beach Knocks Cougars out of MPSF Tourney

LONG BEACH -- BYU's season ended Saturday as the Cougars fell 3-1 (21-30, 23-30, 30-25, 25-30) to Long Beach State in the quarterfinals of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament. BYU ends its season at 18-9 overall and 14-8 in the MPSF while the 49ers advance to the MPSF semifinals against UC Irvine.

"It's not how we wanted to end the season," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "We played a very good team that is excellent at their place. They did the things they needed to do to beat us, namely ball control. Congratulations to them. They are well coached."

The Cougars trailed 2-0 in the match but seemed to gain some life in game three, which they won 30-25. Long Beach took the momentum right back, however, taking a big lead early in game four and winning 30-25 to seal the victory.

Yosleyder Cala led BYU with 20 kills and two aces, Russell Holmes added seven kills and a match-high nine blocks and Ivan Perez had nine kills and seven digs. The Cougars hit .184 (50-29-114) as a team and had 20 digs and 10.0 blocks.

Norm Hutton had a career and match-high 26 kills for Long Beach while Robert Tarr added 12 and Teddy Liles had eight blocks. Tyler Hildebrand had five kills, seven digs, four blocks and 43 aces while setting the 49ers to a .396 (61-19-106) hitting percentage. Long Beach had 27 digs and 15.5 team blocks.

Long Beach used hot hitting and strong serving to take game one, 30-21. The 49ers hit .739 (17-0-23) for the game and forced several bad BYU passes to keep the Cougars out of system. Trailing 19-11, BYU scored four-straight points, two on Holmes aces, to cut the lead to four but Long Beach came right back and closed out the game with an 11-6 run. Cala had five kills and the Cougars hit .194 (13-7-31) as a team in the first game.

Game two was a see-saw battle throughout the first half as the score was tied 11 times, the last at 18. BYU trailed 17-16 but then scored two points on kills by Cala and Perez to give the Cougars an 18-17 lead. That was BYU's last lead as the 49ers stormed to a 30-23 win by outscoring the Cougars 13-5 the rest of the way. Tarr had four kills during the run and Hutton scored Long Beach's last two points to give his team the victory.

BYU stayed alive with a 30-25 win in game three. The game was tied at eight when the Cougars score four-straight points to take the lead for good. BYU took a 19-12 lead on a 5-1 run and its biggest lead was eight at 27-19. Long Beach would not go away, though, cutting the lead to three at 28-25, but the Cougars put the game away on back-to-back kills by Cala. BYU had 6.0 team blocks and hit .290 (15-6-31) in game three. Cala led the way with seven kills.

The 49ers closed out the match with a 30-25 win in game four. Long Beach appeared to have the game locked up, leading 29-20, before the Cougars ran off five-consecutive points. The rally was not enough as Liles recorded the match-winning kill. With the score tied at 6-6, the 49ers scored five points in a row and led the rest of the way. Long Beach out-hit BYU .455 (14-4-22) to .087 (11-9-23) in the decisive game.

"I'm very proud of our team," Peterson said. "This isn't what we wanted but I saw our players develop both as volleyball players and as people throughout the season. This is a great group of guys."

With an 18-9 record, BYU ends a run of five-consecutive 20-win seasons. The Cougars will return several key players in 2007 but lose the services of seniors Victor Batista, Rob Neilson, Taylor Evans, Brian Rowley and Josh Brecheisen.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                     Brigham Young University - Volleyball
    #5 BYU Cougars vs #3 Long Beach State (Apr 22, 2006 at Long Beach State)
    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
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  CALA, Yosleyder.....  4| 20   8  41  .293|  0|  2   5|  2|  5| 0  1  1|  0|  22.5
 8  PEREZ, Ivan.........  4|  9   7  20  .100|  0|  1   1|  0|  7| 0  2  1|  0|  11.0
 11 HOLMES, Russell.....  4|  7   1  16  .375|  0|  2   5|  0|  1| 0  9  0|  0|  13.5
 14 NEILSON, Rob........  4|  0   1   1-1.000| 43|  0   3|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 15 BATISTA, Victor.....  4|  6   3  11  .273|  0|  1   2|  0|  1| 0  0  1|  0|   7.0
 17 EVANS, Taylor.......  4|  1   5   9 -.444|  0|  0   3|  0|  1| 0  1  0|  0|   1.5
 3  CHARETTE, Jonathan..  4|  5   4  12  .083|  0|  0   2|  0|  1| 0  6  0|  0|   8.0
 5  CONGELLIERE, Brian..  1|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 7  ROWLEY, Brian.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  1|  4| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 18 GOMES, Rodrigo......  4|  2   0   4  .500|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0|   2.0
 19 SORENSEN, Trent.....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   0.5
    TEAM................   |                 |   |       |  1|   |        |   |   0.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 50  29 114  .184| 47|  6  21|  4| 22| 0 20  3|  0|  66.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 10.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13  7  31  .194   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  11  7  29  .138   BYU Cougars......... (1) 21 23 30 25  18-9
   3  15  6  31  .290   Long Beach State.... (3) 30 30 25 30  22-9
   4  11  9  23  .087
    Long Beach State       |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2  Lotman, Paul........  4|  7   2  11  .455|  0|  1   3|  2|  5| 0  4  1|  0|  10.0
 5  Hildebrand, Tyler...  4|  5   1   7  .571| 43|  0   0|  0|  7| 0  4  2|  0|   7.0
 9  Hutton, Norm........  4| 26   5  37  .568|  0|  1   5|  0|  2| 1  3  1|  0|  29.5
 13 Liles, Teddy........  4|  8   1  12  .583|  0|  0   3|  0|  1| 0  8  0|  0|  12.0
 17 Budinger, Duncan....  4|  3   2  11  .091|  2|  1   4|  0|  0| 0  5  1|  0|   6.5
 24 Tarr, Robert........  4| 12   8  28  .143|  2|  0   6|  3|  3| 0  4  0|  0|  14.0
 1  Caldwell, Tyler.....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  5|  0   0|  1|  8| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 3  Watten, Dustin......  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 6  Valdez, Francisco...  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   1|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 10 Shea, Luke..........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  1|  0|   0.0
 14 Fabry, Daniel.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   0.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 61  19 106  .396| 52|  4  22|  6| 27| 1 29  6|  0|  80.5
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 15.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  0  23  .739   Site: Long Beach State (Walter Pyramid)
   2  15  7  27  .296   Date: Apr 22, 2006   Attend: 1441   Time: 1:53
   3  15  8  34  .206   Referees: Tony Chan, Scott Hogue
   4  14  4  22  .455   Triple blocks: Long Beach State 3, BYU 2
                        MPSF Quarterfinals