For the fourth weekend in a row, the BYU men’s volleyball team (18-7, 14-6 MPSF) completed a weekend sweep. This time it was Long Beach State (12-13, 8-10 MPSF) who went down Friday 3-1 to the No. 3 Cougars.

"This weekend was huge for our program to win two on the road in April," said BYU head coach Shawn Patchell. "The team played extremely well tonight against a skilled Long Beach team."

For the second night in a row, sophomore Robb Stowell led the Cougars on the attack with 26 kills, tying his career high. He also posted a season-high in hitting percentage at .657. Adding 11 digs to the night, Stowell tallied his third double-double of the season and the fifth of his career.

Senior Andrew Stewart also had a stellar night on the attack with 21 kills. He added five digs and seven blocks. Senior setter Reed Chilton tallied 63 assists to help the team hit at .460. Sophomore Futi Tavana finished the night with eight kills on .636 hitting and eight blocks while senior Kevin Sagers also tallied eight kills on .429 hitting.

"Robb and Andrew were solid for us and Reed played very well distributing the ball," said Patchell. "We were very balanced all around. The team continued to block well and Futi had another great night while our middles had good hitting percentages."

Set one started out with both teams trading points until BYU began to chip away at the score with two-point stints after the score was tied at 11. The 49ers didn’t make it easy as they came back to knot the score at 24 until the Cougars finished off the set 30-26.

Stowell hit at an almost perfect .917 percent with 11 kills and 12 attempts with no errors in the first set alone.

Starting out the second set with a 3-1 run, the Cougars maintained the lead until LBSU fought back, tying the score 11 times until the 49ers won their only set of the night at 30-27.

With the largest margin of the night, the Cougars stepped up their play in set three, defeating the 49ers 30-22. BYU maintained the lead the entire set. Tavana hit a perfect 3-of-3 kills during the set while Stowell continued to lead the team in kills, going 6-of-7.

Bringing the match to four sets, the Cougars finished of their eighth-straight win 30-23. The fourth was led by Stewart with 6-of-6 kills and no errors (1.000 hitting). The team hit .500 in set four and tallied five blocks.

The Cougars will return home Friday and Saturday to host Cal Baptist at 7 p.m. both nights in the Smith Fieldhouse.

Volleyball Box Score
                            The Automated ScoreBook
        #3 BYU vs #8 Long Beach State (Apr 02, 2010 at Long Beach State)
   BYU                    |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
## Name                 SP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3  CHILTON, Reed.......  4|  0   2   4 -.500| 63|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  0  0|  0
5  LAVAJA, Russell.....  4|  7   1  13  .462|  1|  1   3|  0|  0| 0  6  1|  0
7  ROBINSON, Jeff......  2|  3   2  12  .083|  0|  0   0|  4|  1| 0  2  0|  0
13 STOWELL, Robb.......  4| 26   3  35  .657|  0|  1   4|  0| 11| 0  4  1|  0
15 STEWART, Andrew.....  4| 21   5  35  .457|  0|  0   0|  2|  5| 0  7  0|  0
17 TAVANA, Futi........  4|  8   1  11  .636|  2|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  8  1|  0
4  SILVA, Joel.........  4|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  1|  6| 0  0  0|  0
11 SAGERS, Kevin.......  3|  8   2  14  .429|  0|  1   2|  2|  1| 0  1  0|  0
14 PEREZ, Yamil........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Totals..............  4| 73  16 124  .460| 69|  3  12|  9| 32| 0 28  3|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER SET                                TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 14.0
 Set   K  E  TA   Pct
   1  20  4  36  .444   SET SCORES                1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  18  7  36  .306   BYU................. (3) 30 27 30 30  18-7, 14-6 MPSF
   3  19  2  26  .654   Long Beach State.... (1) 26 30 22 23  12-13, 8-10 MPSF
   4  16  3  26  .500
   Long Beach State       |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
## Name                 SP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4  Pestolesi, Tommy....  4| 16   5  30  .367|  0|  0   2|  1|  5| 1  1  0|  0
5  Klipsch, Mike.......  1|  0   0   0  .000| 15|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
6  Friend, Kyle........  4| 15   6  33  .273|  0|  3   6|  0|  4| 0  0  1|  0
11 Aguillard, Antwain..  4| 10   2  20  .400|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  0  1|  0
18 Bittner, Dean.......  4| 12  14  33 -.061|  0|  2   1|  0|  6| 0  1  1|  0
21 Alexander, Dan......  4|  8   0  14  .571|  2|  4   4|  0|  3| 0  3  0|  0
2  Baughman, Jim.......  4|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
15 Echave, Colten......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
17 Eaton, Conor........  3|  1   0   1 1.000| 40|  0   0|  0|  5| 0  1  0|  0
20 Francis, Kirk.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  4|  0   0|  2|  4| 0  0  0|  0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Totals..............  4| 63  27 132  .273| 61|  9  14|  3| 28| 1  6  3|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER SET                                TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Set   K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  9  37  .216   Site: Long Beach State (Walter Pyramid)
   2  18  5  37  .351   Date: Apr 02, 2010   Attend: 797   Time: 1:56
   3  16  4  26  .462   Referees: Kevin Cull, Scott Hogue
   4  12  9  32  .094

The No. 3 BYU men’s volleyball team (16-7, 12-6 MPSF) travels to No. 8 Long Beach State (12-11, 8-8 MPSF) for a two-match series on Thursday and Friday nights at the Walter Pyramid. Both matches will begin at 7 p.m. PT.

The Cougars moved from tied for fourth to third in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation after sweeping UC Santa Barbara last week. BYU clinches a spot in the tournament playoffs with one win this week or one loss by both UCSB and UCI.

The 49ers are currently tied with USC in the MPSF standings after beating unranked Pacific last Friday and losing to No. 1 Stanford on Saturday.

Series Information

Long Beach St. holds a slight advantage in the all-time series record over BYU (18-17). In the last two meetings in Provo on March 20 & 21 in 2009, the Cougars swept the 49ers in two 5-set matches. LBSU has won five of the last nine meetings between the two teams, however the Cougars have claimed wins in eight of the last nine meetings in Provo. In total, BYU is 3-6 in three-set matches, 7-8 in four-set matches, and 7-4 in five-set matches against the 49ers.

Match Coverage

Live stats are available at the BYU men’s volleyball schedule page at www.byucougars.com. Gametracker can be launched by clicking on the “Live Stats” link for the appropriate game on the schedule.

Coming Off...

BYU is coming off a weekend sweep of No. 10 UC Santa Barbara last weekend in Provo. Sophomore opposite hitter Robb Stowell totaled 37 kills over the two matches, leading the Cougars with 22 kills on Friday. Sophomore middle blocker Futi Tavana led the Cougars to a new all-time BYU record 24.5 team blocks with 15 total blocks on Saturday. The 15 total blocks Tavana tallied was also a new BYU record, breaking his old record of 13 set against LBSU on March 21, 2009. Senior setter Reed Chilton tallied 95-of-111 assists over the two days while senior outside hitter Kevin Sagers came off the bench to led the attack on Saturday with 18 kills. Senior outside hitter Andrew Stewart also posted double-digit kills both nights, while sophomore middle blocker Russell Lavaja totaled 14 blocks on the weekend.