SANTA BARBARA -- Defeating its third straight ranked opponent, No. 12 BYU extended its winning streak to 11 matches late Friday with a three-game sweep of No. 13 UC Santa Barbara, 15-5, 15-13, 15-5, at the Thunderdome in Santa Barbara, Calif.

The Cougars, now 24-6 on the year, have won three straight road matches over ranked teams, including last week's Mountain West Conference Tournament wins over then No. 4 Colorado State and then No. 19 Utah. The NCAA Tournament automatic qualifier from the MWC, BYU will learn of its tournament pairing Sunday when the 64-team field is announced. BYU is expected to be one of 16 schools to host the first and second rounds of the tournament.

"We really played well," BYU coach Elaine Michaelis said of Friday's win. "Our block was a major factor. We intimidated them a little with our block and our offense was really clicking when we had the pass -- they really couldn't stop us. They were keying on Nina (Puikkonen), which opened up the outsides, but Nina still hit very well."

After jumping on the Gauchos in game one, BYU got down four points early in the second game thanks to strong serving by UCSB. The Cougars made adjustments and were able to eventually pull even at 13-13 on their way to the 15-13 win. BYU dominated the third game, again only allowing five UCSB points.

Puikkonen led the Cougar attack with 12 kills while hitting .500, but got significant help from BYU's outside hitters as senior Melissa Layton put down 11 kills, Sunny Tonga 10 and Kalani Tonga eight. Layton has tallied double-digit kills in five straight matches. Sunny Tonga hit a BYU season-high .769 attack percentage with no errors in 13 attempts while Layton added a strong .556 percentage to the BYU attack. The Cougars hit .418, their third-highest percentage of the season, while the Gauchos felt the intimidation of BYU's block, hitting just .157. BYU totaled 13.5 team blocks to UCSB's six.

Cougar junior middle blocker Jackie Bundy had a match-best seven blocks while Layton added six. Layton and Kalani Tonga had a team-best seven digs for BYU. Freshman all-conference setter Karina Puikkonen tossed up 40 assists and added six digs in the win.

Simone Kuhn and Danielle Bauer, who had 15 and 13 kills, respectively, led UCSB. The Gauchos, who dropped to 23-7 overall with the loss, will be making their record-tying 19th NCAA Tournament appearance this year, while the Cougars, who have only missed one post-season event, will play in their 18th overall and 11th in a row. The BYU win evened the overall series between the two national powers at 7-7-1.

Volleyball Box Score
      BYU Cougars vs UC Santa Barbara (Nov 24, 2000 at Santa Barbara, CA)
    BYU Cougars            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  PUIKKONEN, Karina...  3|  4   2   8  .250| 40|  1   0|  0|  6| 1  1  0|  2
 9  PUIKKONEN, Nina.....  3| 12   2  20  .500|  0|  0   2|  0|  5| 1  3  2|  0
 10 BUNDY, Jackie.......  3|  8   5  17  .176|  0|  0   1|  0|  7| 0  7  0|  0
 12 LAYTON, Melissa.....  3| 11   1  18  .556|  0|  2   2|  0|  3| 0  6  0|  0
 14 TONGA, Kalani.......  3|  8   3  20  .250|  1|  0   1|  2|  7| 0  2  0|  0
 15 TONGA, Sunny........  3| 10   0  13  .769|  4|  0   0|  2|  2| 0  4  0|  0
 2  WHITTAKER, Natalie..  3|  1   0   2  .500|  0|  0   0|  0|  5| 0  0  0|  0
 3  CRABBE, Uila........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  1
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 54  13  98  .418| 45|  3   7|  4| 38| 2 23  2|  3
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 13.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  12  7  26  .192   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  23  3  40  .500   BYU Cougars......... 15 15 15  24-6
   3  19  3  32  .500   UC Santa Barbara....  5 13  5  23-7
    UC Santa Barbara       |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  Lampe, Brieanna.....  3|  1   5  12 -.333|  2|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  1  1|  0
 5  Rundle, Brooke......  3|  0   0   2  .000| 18|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  2
 8  Menzel, Erica.......  3|  7   4  25  .120|  0|  1   0|  2|  2| 0  1  0|  0
 12 Bauer, Danielle.....  3| 13   7  25  .240|  0|  1   1|  0|  3| 1  1  0|  0
 15 Kuhn, Simone........  3| 15   6  30  .300|  0|  1   2|  0|  8| 2  2  0|  0
 16 Niles, Brooke.......  3|  1   2   6 -.167| 22|  0   0|  0|  9| 0  1  0|  1
 7  Guerra, Courtney....  3|  7   2  20  .250|  0|  1   0|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 9  McFarland, Casey....  2|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
    TEAM................   |                 |   |       |  1|   |        |
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 45  26 121  .157| 42|  4   4|  3| 26| 3  6  1|  3
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 6.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1   6 11  30 -.167   Site: Santa Barbara, CA (The Thunderdome)
   2  27  7  51  .392   Date: Nov 24, 2000   Attend: 548   Time: 1:30
   3  12  8  40  .100   Referees: Rick Olmstead, Marvin Hall

BYU Travels To Santa Barbara For Thanksgiving Clash

No. 12 Cougars Match Up With No. 13 UCSB Friday

A week after winning the Mountain West Conference Tournament, the No. 12 BYU women's volleyball team will travel to play its tenth nationally-ranked team when it travels to Santa Barbara to face the 13th-ranked Gauchos Friday at 7 p.m. (8 p.m. MST) in The Thunderdome. Both the Cougars and the Gauchos have identical 23-6 overall records.

BYU has played a ranked team in 14 of its 29 matches this season and is 7-6 in those matches. The Cougars have defeated teams that were No. 1 (Stanford), No. 2 (Long Beach State), No. 3 (Colorado State) and No. 4 (Colorado State) at the time the teams played this season.

UCSB is 11-1 at home with its only home loss coming against Southern California on Oct. 24. BYU is 6-5 on the road this season. However, the Cougars have won 10 matches in row, including five road matches in a row. The Cougars defeated No. 6 Colorado State last week in the championship match of the conference tournament, breaking the Rams' NCAA-best 44-match home winning streak.

Puikkonen Named National Player Of The Week

Nina Puikkonen, a 6-3 junior middle blocker at No. 12 BYU, has been chosen the AVCA/Sports Imports Division I National Player of the Week for leading the Cougars to the Mountain West Conference championship with victories over two ranked teams. She has won the award twice this season.

Puikkonen averaged 4.08 kills, 2.62 blocks, 2.31 digs and 0.15 service aces per game as then-No. 13 BYU defeated Wyoming 3-0, then-No. 19 Utah 3-1 and then-No 4 Colorado State 3-2. She chalked up 24 kills, 14 digs and 13 blocks to notch her second triple-double of the season versus Utah in the conference semifinals on Nov. 17. Puikkonen also attacked at a .422 clip

in the semifinal match. She recorded 15 kills, 12 digs and eight blocks to lead BYU over Colorado State on Nov. 18 in the championship match.

Puikkonen, the MWC Tournament Most Valuable Player, set a conference tournament record with 34 blocks, including individual-match conference tournament records of 13 blocks against Wyoming on Nov. 16 and Utah. For the week, she averaged 17.7 kills, 10.0 digs and 11.3 blocks per match for a different kind of triple-double.

Series Notes

BYU is 7-6-1 all-time against the Gauchos with the last meeting going to the Cougars in 1998. The two teams met for the first time in the 1969-70 season with UCSB taking the first-ever meeting. Before the Cougars won in 1998, UCSB had won twice in a row (1997, 1995).

Coach Michaelis Profile

Now in her 39th year at the helm of the BYU program, Elaine Michaelis also enters her sixth year as Director of Women's Athletics. A proven winner, Michaelis is second all-time in Division I victories with an 864-215-5 record (since records were kept in 1969) and has the most wins ever by a female coach. With last year's Mountain West Conference regular season title, she has the distinction of winning the inaugural championship in each of the five leagues in which BYU has been a volleyball member. Michaelis concluded her first season in the new Mountain West Conference with a 13-1 record to improve her overall conference ledger to an incredible 334-31 -- a .915 winning percentage (now 346-33). With a 28-5 overall record in 1999, Michaelis posted her 26th consecutive 20-win season and her 28th in 31 years. She has never had a losing season. In 1999, her Cougar squad advanced to the NCAA East Regional Semifinals -- the fourth straight year she has guided BYU to the round of 16. She coached BYU to wins over No. 10 Pepperdine, No. 12 Colorado State, No. 14 Arizona, No. 23 Wisconsin and No. 29 Utah (twice) last year will suffering losses to No. 2 Stanford, No. 5 Florida, No. 12 Colorado State (twice) and NCAA tournament-qualifying Michigan. The Cougars' foray into the NCAA tournament was their 18th in the 19-year history of NCAA control of the sport. It also marked the 28th time BYU has participated in a national tournament. BYU's run to the NCAA regional semifinals improved Michaelis' national tournament record to 71-42 (.628).