Kings Stun Cougars in Come-From-Behind Upset

PROVO -- It took five games, but the Red Deer College Kings sneaked past the Cougars in an upset 3-2 victory Saturday in the Smith Fieldhouse. The loss gives the Cougars an even 1-1 record coming off their first set of matches under new head coach Tom Peterson.

"We were bad at bad times. It's very disappointing. Those guys are a very young team, and they wanted it worse than we did," Peterson said. "We can't pick and choose when we want to play hard."

All five games were close, usually with scoring margins of no more than two or three points throughout each game. At first it seemed to be a repeat of last night's close match, but once the Kings came from behind to win game three they took off and didn't let down. The Canadian Kings, who suffered their first loss of the season last night (3-0) against the Cougars, improved their record to 11-1 with tonight's win.

"The other team should get all the credit, Peterson said. "They came out and played very hard the entire time. When they were down, they just kept going, and that marks a well-coached team."

Despite the closeness of the games, the Cougars showed a valiant effort, winning the first two games 30-28, 30-28. Chris Gorny and Michael Burke both started off with extremely high hitting percentages, not recording a single attack error until late in game three. At the end of game two, Burke had registered a blistering .900 percentage with 9 kills on 10 attempts. Burke kept it up all through the match, finishing with a match-high .737 percentage (15-5-19). Gorny finished with 12 kills on 20 attempts and two errors (.500).

Rafael Paal led the Cougars with 17 kills on the night, but was plagued by errors both on the attack and on the serve. Jaime Mayol also made a good showing, recording his first double-double with 10 kills and 11 digs, but it just wasn't enough for the Cougars.

"Serving is glaring; we made stupid errors. There were 29 service errors--that's huge," Peterson said. "If we can't put the ball on the court it doesn't matter what else we do. And it happened at the wrong time, that is what's very discouraging."

The Cougars had a hard time blocking sophomore outside hitter Nicholas Cundy, who led the Kings with a match-high 21 kills (21-12-49, .184). Freshman Daniel Soonias and junior Aaron Schulha also played well for the Kings, combining for 23 kills and nine blocks.

"We let them get an early lead in all the four games, and we should have won that last game, but we made too many errors in a row at the end of the game," Peterson said.

Game five was the only one in which the Cougars started with the lead, but the Kings were determined at the end not to let it go. With BYU up 14-10, Cundy changed the momentum with a strong kill and the Cougars caved in with two attack errors in a row to put the Kings within one. Mac Kucharski drove in another kill to tie the score at 14, and two fatal errors after long rallies by the Cougars ended the game with a final score of 14-16.

"We haven't gone five games; we haven't gone four games. It's hard to get that kind of competition," Peterson said. "That's why we play these matches. Red Deer is a very good team, and hopefully the experience will carry over and we won't make the same mistakes next time."

The Cougars travel to Stanford next week, playing the Cardinal in back-to-back matches Friday, Jan. 17, and Saturday, Jan. 18, in their first MPSF matchup of the season.

Volleyball Box Score
                           BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
       Red Deer College vs Brigham Young (Jan 11, 2003 at Provo, Utah)
    Red Deer College       |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  CUNDY, Nicholas.....  5| 21  12  49  .184|  1|  0   7|  0|  5| 0  3  0|  0
 2  SILLERY, Adam.......  2|  1   3   4 -.500|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0
 4  SCHULHA, Aaron......  5| 13   7  34  .176|  1|  2   2|  2|  6| 0  2  0|  0
 7  DAVIDIUK, Brock.....  5|  1   2   4 -.250| 53|  1   1|  0|  5| 0  4  0|  1
 14 KUCHARSKI, Mac......  5|  9   1  21  .381|  2|  0   3|  0|  1| 0  6  0|  0
 15 SOONIAS, Daniel.....  4| 10   2  18  .444|  0|  3   2|  0|  3| 1  2  0|  0
 3  ELLIS, Robert.......  5|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  0
 9  SCHALK, Seth........  3|  4   1   6  .500|  0|  0   1|  0|  8| 1  0  0|  0
 11 ROTH, Adam..........  4|  4   1   6  .500|  0|  1   3|  0|  0| 0  3  1|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  5| 63  29 142  .239| 58|  7  19|  2| 35| 2 20  1|  1
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 12.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13  8  28  .179   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  4  5  TEAM RECORDS
   2  14  7  36  .194   Red Deer College.... 28 28 30 30 16  11-1
   3  10  4  23  .261   Brigham Young....... 30 30 25 23 14  1-1
   4  17  5  31  .387
   5   9  5  24  .167
    Brigham Young          |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  BURKE, Michael......  5| 15   1  19  .737|  1|  0   0|  0|  6| 1  5  1|  0
 5  MORENO, Carlos......  5|  5   0   6  .833| 59|  1   5|  0|  6| 0  4  1|  1
 6  GORNY, Chris........  5| 12   2  20  .500|  1|  0   7|  0|  1| 0  6  1|  0
 7  MAYOL, Jaime........  5| 10   7  32  .094|  0|  0   4|  3| 11| 0  4  1|  0
 9  PAAL, Rafael........  5| 17  11  36  .167|  3|  1   9|  1|  4| 0  3  1|  0
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  5| 11   8  31  .097|  0|  0   3|  0|  8| 0  2  1|  0
 1  PATTERSON, Casey....  1|  1   1   3  .000|  0|  0   1|  1|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 15 OLMSTEAD, Shawn.....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  5|  0   0|  2|  5| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  5| 71  30 147  .279| 69|  2  29|  7| 44| 1 24  6|  1
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 13.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  6  32  .344   Site: Brigham Young (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  21  5  33  .485   Date: Jan 11, 2003   Attend: 1057   Time: 2:30
   3  13  9  29  .138   Referees: Les Calles, Tom Given, Erin Yamashita
   4  13  5  28  .286
   5   7  5  25  .080