Cougars to Host Stanford on Television

PROVO -- After a week off, the fourth-ranked BYU men's volleyball (7-3, 5-1 MPSF) host No. 11 Stanford (5-9, 3-7 MPSF) in a conference match-up, beginning at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Smith Fieldhouse. Game time on Saturday has been changed from 8:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. due to television broadcast.

Friday's match will be broadcast on KBYU locally, starting at 7 p.m., and on BYU-TV nationally. College Sports TV will televise Saturday's match against Stanford at 7 p.m. CSTV can be found on DirecTV, channel 610.

"Stanford is a good team," head coach Tom Peterson said. "We have to win these matches at home to stay competitive in the conference.

The Cougars swept 12-ranked Pacific on both nights, 3-0 (30-25, 30-25, 30-23) on Feb. 6 and 3-0 (30-27, 30-22, 30-27) on Feb. 7 to stretch their winning streak to six. BYU blocked the Tigers on Feb. 7 in a match lasting only an hour and a half. With the win, BYU extends its overall record over Pacific to 13-4 and 9-0 at home.

The Cougars had the advantage over the Tigers, with 10 blocks to four and hitting .386 to Pacific's .196 percentage. BYU only had one player in double-digit kills, but the team spread the offense around with four players recording eight kills each. Leading the Cougars was All-American Jonathan Alleman with 11 kills, hitting .562 and committing only two errors.

Alleman also led the Cougars with 16 kills on 21 attempts (.667) on Feb. 6, while Fernando Pessoa, the MPSF Player of the Week for Feb. 2-6, recorded his seventh straight double-digit performance with 12 kills. Alleman led all scorers with 18 points, followed by Pessoa with 15. Victor Batista had six kills, three assisted blocks and a team-leading three aces.

The match up with Stanford will be the 23th meeting between the two teams, as BYU leads the series 14-8 overall, including 6-2 in Provo. Last season, the Cougars took both matches at Stanford in five games, winning first two matches of the 2003 season.

"Stanford is a big name school in volleyball and we cannot take them lightly," Peterson said. We'll need to minimize our mistakes and keep up our defense and blocking."

The Cardinal fell to the No. 2 Hawai'i, 3-0 Saturday night in Maples Pavilion. Stanford now stands at 5-9 on the season and 3-7 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play. With the win, the Warriors improve to 8-2 overall and 5-1 in MPSF play. The University of Hawai'i proved why it is the No. 2 men's volleyball team in the country by also defeating Stanford, 3-0 on Friday.

For Friday's match, junior outsider hitter David Vogel led the Cardinal with eight kills, while redshirt junior Pat Bomhack added seven. Sophomore outside hitter Ben Reddy and junior middle blocker Craig Buell each added four kills.

On Saturday, Buell paced Stanford with 6-of-9 kills with no errors and redshirt junior setter Kevin Hansen added 5-of-9 kills with no errors. Redshirt sophomore William Clayton contributed six kills and Reddy paced the Cardinal with three kills. Vogel, Bomhack and Buell each added two kills in the game.