COLORADO SPRINGS -- Allison Larson led the Cougars with a career performance as the BYU women's volleyball team had its most offensively complete match in conference play as it downed Air Force 33-35, 30-24, 30-25, 30-24 Saturday. With its win over the Falcons the Cougars complete a perfect 2-0 weekend and improve to 11-14, 6-5 Mountain West Conference, while Air Force drops to 8-17, 2-7.

"Statistically we played well," BYU coach Karen Lamb said. "But we could've played a lot better and that bodes well for our team."

Larson had career-highs with 18 kills and a .583 attack percentage, while also recording four digs and three blocks.

"We seem to have a different player step up and come up big for us," Lamb said. "Tonight we had a handful of players that did well, but Allison really came up with some big plays."

Riding a six-match losing streak, Air Force came out with fire in the first game hitting a team-high .378 and putting down 21 kills. BYU recorded 22 kills in the game, but its nine attack errors was the difference in the game.

After losing a closely contested first game, the Cougars came out in game two and took control to the match. BYU relied on precise passing by setter Karina Puikkonen as she took control of the match by controlling the BYU attack. Puikkonen dished out 61 assists on the night, while managing to record six kills. As has been her trademark all season, Puikkonen put forth an all-around effort as she also had seven digs and eight blocks.

BYU held Air Force to a .024 attack percentage in the third game, as the Cougar block forced the Falcons to commit 11 attack errors. On the night, BYU held an 18.0-11.0 blocking advantage over Air Force.

Mirroring the effort of Friday night's effort against New Mexico, BYU came out with its best play in the final game. The Cougars made only two attack errors while putting down 18 kills (.571) to seal the match.

Three other Cougars registered double-digit kills and all three set various career highs on the night. Erin Webb, starting in place of an injured Carrie Bowers for a second consecutive night, put down a career-high 11 kills on .333 hitting while also chipping in with four blocks.

"I felt it was important to rest Carrie this weekend," Lamb said. "And Erin did a nice job of filling in for her this weekend."

Laura Nielsen recorded her first career double-double with career highs of 15 kills (.400) and 11 blocks. Kim Wilson continues to produce on the outside recording 15 kills on a career-high .462 hitting.

The Cougars improve to 9-0 when hitting for a higher attack percentage and 6-0 when hitting over .300 against their opponents this season.

"Even though we didn't play our best a lot of good things happened tonight," Lamb said. "We keep learning and doing certain things better and the experience is really valuable."

The Cougars capped off a winning weekend in BYU sports. The men's and women's cross country teams took home MWC crowns, the men's and women's swimming and diving teams won a dual competition versus Utah, the women's soccer team defeated Utah and the football team downed San Diego State.

BYU has three home matches remaining before the MWC Tournament in Fort Collins, Colo., Nov. 21-23. In their only match of the week, the Cougars will host No. 22 Utah, in a critical conference showdown, Friday at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse.

                              Volleyball Box Score
          BYU Cougars vs Air Force (Nov 02, 2002 at Air Force Academy)
    BYU Cougars            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2  PUIKKONEN, Karina...  4|  6   1  10  .500| 61|  1   0|  0|  7| 1  7  0|  1
 5  CASTILLO, Sahara....  4|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   5|  2|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 6  METCALF, Lindsey....  4|  9   7  30  .067|  1|  2   0|  1|  8| 0  3  0|  0
 7  LARSON, Allison.....  4| 18   4  24  .583|  1|  0   2|  0|  4| 1  2  0|  0
 10 WEBB, Erin..........  4| 11   4  21  .333|  0|  0   2|  0|  2| 1  3  1|  0
 18 NIELSEN, Laura......  4| 15   5  25  .400|  0|  1   2|  0|  1| 2  9  0|  0
 12 CRABBE, Uila........  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  9| 0  0  0|  0
 15 WILSON, Kimberly....  4| 15   3  26  .462|  1|  0   0|  0|  3| 1  0  1|  0
 17 MAHAFFEY, Michelle..  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   1|  1|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 75  24 137  .372| 64|  5  12|  5| 40| 6 24  2|  1
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 18.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  22  9  45  .289   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  19  6  30  .433   BYU Cougars......... 33 30 30 30  11-14, 6-5 MWC
   3  16  7  34  .265   Air Force........... 35 24 25 24  8-17, 2-7 MWC
   4  18  2  28  .571
    Air Force              |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  HUITT, Kristin......  4|  0   1   2 -.500| 55|  1   1|  0|  7| 0  4  0|  0
 5  BISHOP, Tiffany.....  4| 15   6  34  .265|  0|  1   4|  0|  1| 2  3  1|  0
 7  JEFFERSON, Lamecca..  4| 14   5  30  .300|  0|  0   0|  3|  4| 0  0  1|  0
 10 DIAZ, Delavane......  4|  8  11  32 -.094|  0|  1   1|  0|  0| 1  4  0|  0
 11 EDMONDS, Brittany...  4|  5   3  13  .154|  0|  1   2|  0|  3| 0  0  1|  0
 23 HAMLETT, Kristin....  4| 20   3  30  .567|  0|  0   2|  0|  1| 0  5  2|  0
 4  SIEFKIN, Carly......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  4|  1   1|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 6  BEATTY, Jaime.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  2|  8| 0  0  0|  0
 9  HICKERSON, Elise....  2|  1   1   4  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  0  0|  0
 13 NIGRO, Christina....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 63  30 145  .228| 59|  5  11|  5| 30| 3 16  5|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 11.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  21  7  37  .378   Site: Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs, CO)
   2  14  5  30  .300   Date: Nov 02, 2002   Attend: 278   Time: 2:10
   3  12 11  42  .024   Referees: Kim Pickering, Donna Wigdon
   4  16  7  36  .250

PROVO -- Seeking to get back into the win column, the BYU women's volleyball team will travel to play its last regular season road matches of the season this weekend. The Cougars will play New Mexico Friday at Johnson Arena and Air Force Saturday at East Gym. Both matches are scheduled to start at 7 p.m. (MST).

"I'm optimistic that if we play well this weekend we should have two wins," BYU coach Karen Lamb said. "We've encountered a lot of adversity this season and I'm truly proud of how the players have continued to compete. Some days are better than others and some weeks are better than others, but the main thing is we never give up, we keep fighting and we continue to be a team."

Starting sophomore outside hitter April Varner is the team leader with 2.88 kills per game, but she continues to be out after sustaining a severely sprained ankle in practice last week. In her place true freshman outside hitter Kim Wilson has picked up the offensive slack as she continues her surging play. In the weekend losses to UNLV and San Diego State, Wilson led the team with 32 kills (4.57 kpg), including a career-high 17-kill effort versus UNLV. Sophomore outside hitter Lindsey Metcalf shook off the nagging effects of a sprained ankle to set a career-high with 20 digs and tie a career best with 13 kills versus SDSU.

Junior middle blocker Laura Nielsen, the most consistent Cougar attacker, hit .308 in each of last week's matches and is hitting a team-high .354 on the season. Despite the pain of two stress fractures in her feet, junior middle blocker Carrie Bowers has played in every game this season and leads the team with 116 total blocks. She led the Cougars with 10 blocks last week.

Two-time all-MWC setter Karina Puikkonen continues to lead the BYU offense as she averaged 12.71 apg last week. Junior defensive specialist Uila Crabbe, currently ninth in the MWC with 2.66 dpg, anchored the Cougar defense as she put up a team-high 33 digs.

The BYU infirmary continues to stay busy as Varner is expected to be out several more weeks. Bowers does not practice and has not missed a game this season, but her effectiveness has been curtailed by her injuries. Redshirt middle blocker Lexi Brown is gone for the season after tearing an ACL earlier in the year. Lindsey Metcalf and Laura Nielsen have both returned in the last two weeks from a sprained ankle and broken foot, respectively.

"Every week it depends on how each of the players comes to play," Lamb said. "There's no flexibility as far as substitutions go. There's no depth and when a player is struggling coming off an injury or just not playing well, I really don't have any options."

The Lobos and Falcons are tied for last place in the MWC with identical 2-6 records. Each team struggled at the start of the season, followed by a winning spurt, but both have fallen on hard times recently.

New Mexico

The Lobos (7-14, 2-6) snapped a six-match losing streak in sweeping Air Force Friday. This has been a season of streaks for New Mexico as it started the season losing seven in a row and also won five in a row before its most recent skid. The Cougars swept an earlier meeting with the Lobos and now own a 51-7 all-time record against New Mexico, including 21-4 in Albuquerque, N.M.

New Mexico is directed by first-year head coach Kelley Sliva. In MWC play the Lobos are led by Anna Reines who is seventh in kills (3.62 kpg), Vanessa Shields who is 13th in kills (3.04 kpg) and Monica Meihack who is seventh in assists (10.52 apg).

Air Force

The Falcons (8-15, 2-6) have lost five consecutive matches heading into this weekend's play. They will play No. 22 Utah Friday before hosting the Cougars. Air Force defeated the Cougars for the first time in history Oct. 4. The Falcons are 1-8 all-time against the Cougars.

Air Force is led by the duo of Delavane Diaz and Tiffany Bishop. In MWC play Diaz averages a team-high 4.00 kpg ranking fifth in the conference. Bishop averaged 3.59 kpg and a .303 attack percentage, ranking eighth in the conference in each category.

"We are doing our best to concentrate on what we can control," Lamb said. "We are doing a better job of that and our passing and serving are really improving. Being totally involved in every ball is another thing we're working on. But it all comes down to competing hard, because if we compete hard the wins will come."