Team Effort in Win Over UC Irvine

PROVO -- Jaime Mayol recorded a personal-best 18 kills Friday night in front of 1, 883 fans to lead the Cougars to a 30-17, 30-25, 28-30, 30-23 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation win over UC Irvine Friday night in the Smith Fieldhouse. Third-ranked BYU improves its record to 14-4 (12-3 MPSF) with the win, while seventh-ranked UC Irvine falls to 15-7 (8-7 MPSF) on the season.

The Cougars out-blocked the Anteaters 14.0 to 8.5 and three BYU players registered double-digit kills in the 3-1 win.

"I thought we had a pretty decent plan for them," BYU head coach Tom Peterson said. "In practice we tried to work out our frustrations emotionally. Maybe that's the biggest thing. Our emotions stayed pretty much the same whether we were up or down."

Setter Carlos Moreno recorded 53 assists to help Jonathan Alleman and Rafael Paal register 14 and 11 kills, respectively. Paal also added a match-high three aces for the Cougars. On defense, Michael Burke contributed seven blocks (1-6) and four digs, while libero Fernando Pessoa recorded 10 digs on the night.

The Cougars were up and down throughout the match, but once again the cheering of the crowd helped them gain back their momentum in the fourth game to win the match.

"You just never know about the momentum in volleyball." Peterson said. "It's hard to pinpoint why the momentum changes. It is such a team sport that one little thing can just set it off, and you rally around that with your teammates."

With the score tied at 21 the Cougars seemed to be slowing down, but lost of noise from the crowd got them back into the game. Moreno set to Paal for a kill to take the lead and BYU went on a 9-2 scoring run to win the match 3-1 on Burke block.

A key for the Cougars tonight was their serving--after losing to Penn State last week with 28 service errors, BYU was able to keep the errors down to a more reasonable 12 on the match with five aces.

BYU was able to keep UC Irvine's Jimmy Pelzel to a .172 hitting percentage, although he still managed to record a team-high 12 kills on the night. Jarett Jensen hit .316 (10-4-19) for the Anteaters.

BYU and UC Irvine will play again Saturday, March 15 at 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse.

Volleyball Box Score
                        2003 BYU Men's Volleyball Stats
     No. 7 UC Irvine vs Brigham Young (Mar 14, 2003 at Brigham Young Univ)
    No. 7 UC Irvine        |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  BEMUS, Spencer......  4|  9   5  21  .190|  0|  1   3|  1|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 2  PELZEL, Jimmy.......  4| 12   7  29  .172|  1|  0   5|  0|  7| 2  1  1|  0
 3  VISLAY, Nic.........  3|  7   4  16  .188|  1|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  2  0|  0
 5  KNIFFIN, David......  4|  0   2   6 -.333| 50|  0   0|  0|  4| 0  1  0|  0
 7  TUCKER, Monte.......  3|  3   7  14 -.286|  0|  0   1|  0|  4| 0  1  0|  0
 16 WEICHERT, Kyle......  4|  9   3  18  .333|  0|  0   0|  0|  1| 1  0  0|  0
 6  FORD, Greg..........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  6| 0  0  0|  0
 12 FELL, B.J...........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  2|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 14 GEMISE-FAREAU, Jerom  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   2|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 15 JENSEN, Jarett......  3| 10   4  19  .316|  0|  1   2|  1|  4| 1  2  0|  0
 33 MARCHEWKA, Russ.....  2|  4   2  11  .182|  0|  0   2|  0|  1| 0  2  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 54  34 134  .149| 52|  2  15|  5| 29| 4  9  1|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 8.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1   8  7  30  .033   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  15  7  31  .258   No. 7 UC Irvine..... 17 25 30 23  14-4 12-3
   3  18  9  36  .250   Brigham Young....... 30 30 28 30  15-7 8-7
   4  13 11  37  .054
    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......  4|  7   2  16  .312|  0|  0   0|  0|  4| 1  6  2|  0
 5  MORENO, Carlos......  4|  2   3   6 -.167| 53|  1   2|  0|  5| 0  3  0|  1
 7  MAYOL, Jaime........  4| 18   8  31  .323|  0|  0   0|  0|  5| 1  4  0|  0
 8  HYTE, David.........  4|  9   1  16  .500|  1|  1   0|  0|  2| 0  4  0|  0
 9  PAAL, Rafael........  4| 11   6  28  .179|  1|  3   7|  0|  3| 1  2  1|  0
 12 ALLEMAN, Jonathan...  4| 14   5  30  .300|  0|  0   3|  1|  4| 1  1  1|  0
 4  HILLMAN, Joe........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 17 PESSOA, Fernando....  4|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  1| 10| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  4| 61  25 127  .283| 58|  5  12|  2| 33| 4 20  4|  1
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 14.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  6  33  .333   Site: Brigham Young Univ (Smith Fieldhouse)
   2  17  5  34  .353   Date: Mar 14, 2003   Attend: 1883   Time: 2:00
   3  12  7  26  .192   Referees: TOM GIVEN, LES CALLES, TRENT MANO
   4  15  7  34  .235