PALO ALTO -- The No. 9 BYU women's volleyball team got back on track at the Stanford Invitational with a sweep (32-30, 30-22, 31-29) of Saint Mary's Friday night, improving to 6-1 on the year. Now with 999 all-time program victories, the Cougars will look to make it 1,000 on Saturday.

"I'm very proud of this team," said BYU head coach Jason Watson. "We got better tonight. We responded well to a very tough team in Saint Mary's. I'm especially proud of the way we closed out game three, particularly the play of Bryn Porter. She was clutch for us tonight and played unbelievably."

Porter paced the Cougars with a career-high 17 kills while tying her personal best of nine digs. She was all over the court for the Cougars, coming up with huge back-to-back kills with BYU facing game point in game three. Senior Chelsea Goodman recorded her 39th career double-double with 15 kills and 13 digs, tying her for second all-time in Mountain West Conference history. Erica Lott (14 kills, 11 digs) and Kiana Rogers (53 assists, 12 digs) also posted double-doubles while Annie Pinegar led BYU with 23 digs and Rachel Dyer tallied a team-best six blocks.

As a team, the Cougars hit .333 for the match while recording 63 kills, 70 digs and seven blocks. On the other side of the net, Saint Mary's hit .215 while totaling 48 kills, 57 digs and seven blocks.

Game one started with a battle as the Gaels slowly built up an 8-6 lead only to see the Cougars turn it around with a 7-1 run led by Lott to go up 13-9. From there BYU cruised to a 26-18 advantage and looked to be in control until Saint Mary's began to climb back. Within minutes, the Cougars found themselves staring at game point, 29-28. But BYU put away four of the next five points capped by back-to-back winners from Porter to take the game 32-30.

Fans experienced deja vu to start the second game as Saint Mary's ran up an 8-7 lead until the Cougars scored four straight to go up 12-8. However, unlike the first game, BYU ran away with it from there, posting a 30-22 game-two victory.

The Cougars jumped out to an early lead in game three, 7-3, and kept the Gaels on their heels through the first half. After Saint Mary's came back to tie it up at 14-14, BYU put together a 7-2 run to put the game seemingly out of reach at 21-16. But the Gaels weren't done yet, and, as they did in game one, they stormed back with a 9-2 spurt to go up 25-23. BYU managed to tie the game at 27-27, but back-to-back Gael winners had the Cougars once again facing game point. Enter Porter once again. The junior outside hitter put away back-to-back kills during four straight Cougar points to help BYU take the game 31-29.

BYU will close out the Stanford Invitational on Saturday night against the No. 2 Stanford Cardinal (6-0). The match will begin at 7 p.m. PST (8 p.m. MST) and can be followed on BYU Radio, via CSTV All-Access or on live stats.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                                  BYU Cougars
         Saint Mary's vs #9 BYU Cougars (Sep 07, 2007 at Stanford, CA)
    Saint Mary's           |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 6  JAECKEL, Lauren.....  3|  7   1  15  .400|  0|  1   1|  1|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   8.5
 7  GROESS, Taylor......  3| 13   9  44  .091|  0|  1   1|  1|  6| 0  2  0|  0|  15.0
 8  YORK, Megan.........  3| 13   4  49  .184|  0|  2   1|  2| 14| 0  0  0|  0|  15.0
 10 LOWELL, Shannon.....  3|  7   0  13  .538|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 1  1  0|  0|   8.5
 11 BURTON, Megan.......  3|  6   2  18  .222|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 1  3  0|  0|   8.5
 14 KAMANA'O, Kapua.....  3|  0   0   1  .000| 29|  0   1|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  1|   0.0
 1  THOMPSON, Erin......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 3  BARKER, Brittany....  3|  2   1   4  .250|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  0|   3.0
 5  PAYNE, Christy......  3|  0   0   0  .000| 15|  2   1|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  1|   2.0
 12 FISHER, Alita.......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  3   1|  1| 20| 0  0  0|  0|   3.0
 13 GONZALEZ, Nikki.....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|   0.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 48  17 144  .215| 45|  9   6|  5| 57| 2 10  0|  2|  64.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13  6  44  .159   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  18  8  53  .189   Saint Mary's........ (0) 30 22 29  5-2
   3  17  3  47  .298   BYU Cougars......... (3) 32 30 31  6-1
    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  GOODMAN, Chelsea....  3| 15   5  35  .286|  3|  0   1|  0| 13| 0  1  0|  1|  15.5
 4  HANSEN, Ashton......  3|  8   1  13  .538|  2|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  1|   8.5
 9  ROGERS, Kiana.......  3|  1   1   5  .000| 53|  1   2|  0| 12| 0  1  0|  0|   2.5
 10 LOTT, Erica.........  3| 14   4  34  .294|  1|  1   0|  4| 11| 0  3  1|  0|  16.5
 13 PORTER, Bryn........  3| 17   3  39  .359|  0|  1   2|  2|  9| 0  2  0|  0|  19.0
 44 DYER, Rachel........  3|  8   0  21  .381|  1|  1   2|  0|  2| 0  6  0|  0|  12.0
 11 PINEGAR, Annie......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   1|  3| 23| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 63  14 147  .333| 60|  5   8|  9| 70| 0 14  1|  2|  75.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  21  6  47  .319   Site: Stanford, CA (Maples Pavilion)
   2  17  2  46  .326   Date: Sep 07, 2007   Attend: 636   Time: 1:47
   3  25  6  54  .352   Referees: Michael Yoshikawa, Larry Schwartz

PROVO -- The No. 9 BYU women's volleyball team (5-0) will attempt to become just the fourth program in NCAA volleyball history to record 1,000 wins this week as the Cougars head to the Stanford Invitational. BYU, just two wins away from 1,000, will face No. 17 Cal Poly on Thursday before taking on Saint Mary's on Friday and the No. 2 Cardinal on Saturday in the three-day event.

"This is another exciting week for us," said BYU head coach Jason Watson. "The challenge that our program faces will be to play with the same type of intensity and personality on the road that we had at home last weekend."

With a 998-274-5 all-time record in the 39-year recorded history of BYU women's volleyball, the Cougars are on the verge of joining UCLA, Nebraska and Missouri State as the only programs in the nation to notch at least 1,000 all-time collegiate volleyball victories. Former BYU head coach Elaine Michaelis led BYU to 886 wins in her 33 recorded seasons, retiring second all-time in collegiate volleyball. Karen Lamb added 57 victories to the BYU total in her three seasons while current Cougar head coach Watson has gone 55-10 in just over two seasons. In the 38 years of recorded history prior to 2007, BYU has suffered only one losing season and has won 20 or more matches in 31 of the past 33 years.

"The tradition of volleyball at BYU is one of the best in the nation," said Watson. "We are all very honored to have the opportunity to be a part of this milestone and continue building on the legacy that has been established here."

BYU is also celebrating another achievement as the Cougars' No. 9 ranking in this week's AVCA Coaches' Poll is their highest since Nov. 22, 1999. BYU moved up from No. 15 after winning the BYU Molten Classic last weekend with an incredible five-game win over No. 10 Wisconsin and sweeps of American and Northern Iowa to improve to 5-0 on the year. The Cougars' victory over the Badgers was witnessed by 3,880 fans, the fourth-largest crowd in BYU women's volleyball history. Senior outside hitter Chelsea Goodman was named the tournament MVP for the second straight week while senior rightside hitter Erica Lott and junior middle blocker were named to the All-Tournament team.

The Cougars will face a tough test in getting to 1,000 wins as they face two more ranked opponents this week on the road. The No. 17 Mustangs are 3-3 in 2007 with two of those losses coming against No. 3 Penn State and top-ranked Nebraska. Saint Mary's is undefeated this year at 5-0 while the second-ranked Cardinal has gone 4-0 this season with all four victories coming against ranked opponents.

Action will kick off for the Cougars at 4:30 p.m. PST on Thursday against Cal Poly and will continue Friday at 4:30 p.m. against Saint Mary's and Saturday at 7 p.m. against Stanford. All three BYU matches can be heard on BYU Radio with the Stanford match being joined in progress following the BYU-UCLA football game beginning at 3:30 p.m. PST on Saturday. Live stats will also be available for all three contests, and the Cougar-Cardinal face-off will be streamed on the Internet for CSTV All-Access subscribers.