Cougars Strike Gold with 49ers

For the fourth weekend in a row, the BYU men’s volleyball team (18-7, 14-6 MPSF) completed a weekend sweep. This time it was Long Beach State (12-13, 8-10 MPSF) who went down Friday 3-1 to the No. 3 Cougars.

"This weekend was huge for our program to win two on the road in April," said BYU head coach Shawn Patchell. "The team played extremely well tonight against a skilled Long Beach team."

For the second night in a row, sophomore Robb Stowell led the Cougars on the attack with 26 kills, tying his career high. He also posted a season-high in hitting percentage at .657. Adding 11 digs to the night, Stowell tallied his third double-double of the season and the fifth of his career.

Senior Andrew Stewart also had a stellar night on the attack with 21 kills. He added five digs and seven blocks. Senior setter Reed Chilton tallied 63 assists to help the team hit at .460. Sophomore Futi Tavana finished the night with eight kills on .636 hitting and eight blocks while senior Kevin Sagers also tallied eight kills on .429 hitting.

"Robb and Andrew were solid for us and Reed played very well distributing the ball," said Patchell. "We were very balanced all around. The team continued to block well and Futi had another great night while our middles had good hitting percentages."

Set one started out with both teams trading points until BYU began to chip away at the score with two-point stints after the score was tied at 11. The 49ers didn’t make it easy as they came back to knot the score at 24 until the Cougars finished off the set 30-26.

Stowell hit at an almost perfect .917 percent with 11 kills and 12 attempts with no errors in the first set alone.

Starting out the second set with a 3-1 run, the Cougars maintained the lead until LBSU fought back, tying the score 11 times until the 49ers won their only set of the night at 30-27.

With the largest margin of the night, the Cougars stepped up their play in set three, defeating the 49ers 30-22. BYU maintained the lead the entire set. Tavana hit a perfect 3-of-3 kills during the set while Stowell continued to lead the team in kills, going 6-of-7.

Bringing the match to four sets, the Cougars finished of their eighth-straight win 30-23. The fourth was led by Stewart with 6-of-6 kills and no errors (1.000 hitting). The team hit .500 in set four and tallied five blocks.

The Cougars will return home Friday and Saturday to host Cal Baptist at 7 p.m. both nights in the Smith Fieldhouse.


Volleyball Box Score
                            The Automated ScoreBook
        #3 BYU vs #8 Long Beach State (Apr 02, 2010 at Long Beach State)
   BYU                    |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
## Name                 SP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3  CHILTON, Reed.......  4|  0   2   4 -.500| 63|  0   2|  0|  7| 0  0  0|  0
5  LAVAJA, Russell.....  4|  7   1  13  .462|  1|  1   3|  0|  0| 0  6  1|  0
7  ROBINSON, Jeff......  2|  3   2  12  .083|  0|  0   0|  4|  1| 0  2  0|  0
13 STOWELL, Robb.......  4| 26   3  35  .657|  0|  1   4|  0| 11| 0  4  1|  0
15 STEWART, Andrew.....  4| 21   5  35  .457|  0|  0   0|  2|  5| 0  7  0|  0
17 TAVANA, Futi........  4|  8   1  11  .636|  2|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  8  1|  0
4  SILVA, Joel.........  4|  0   0   0  .000|  3|  0   0|  1|  6| 0  0  0|  0
11 SAGERS, Kevin.......  3|  8   2  14  .429|  0|  1   2|  2|  1| 0  1  0|  0
14 PEREZ, Yamil........  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Totals..............  4| 73  16 124  .460| 69|  3  12|  9| 32| 0 28  3|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER SET                                TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 14.0
 Set   K  E  TA   Pct
   1  20  4  36  .444   SET SCORES                1  2  3  4  TEAM RECORDS
   2  18  7  36  .306   BYU................. (3) 30 27 30 30  18-7, 14-6 MPSF
   3  19  2  26  .654   Long Beach State.... (1) 26 30 22 23  12-13, 8-10 MPSF
   4  16  3  26  .500
   Long Beach State       |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
## Name                 SP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4  Pestolesi, Tommy....  4| 16   5  30  .367|  0|  0   2|  1|  5| 1  1  0|  0
5  Klipsch, Mike.......  1|  0   0   0  .000| 15|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
6  Friend, Kyle........  4| 15   6  33  .273|  0|  3   6|  0|  4| 0  0  1|  0
11 Aguillard, Antwain..  4| 10   2  20  .400|  0|  0   1|  0|  1| 0  0  1|  0
18 Bittner, Dean.......  4| 12  14  33 -.061|  0|  2   1|  0|  6| 0  1  1|  0
21 Alexander, Dan......  4|  8   0  14  .571|  2|  4   4|  0|  3| 0  3  0|  0
2  Baughman, Jim.......  4|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
15 Echave, Colten......  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
17 Eaton, Conor........  3|  1   0   1 1.000| 40|  0   0|  0|  5| 0  1  0|  0
20 Francis, Kirk.......  4|  0   0   0  .000|  4|  0   0|  2|  4| 0  0  0|  0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Totals..............  4| 63  27 132  .273| 61|  9  14|  3| 28| 1  6  3|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER SET                                TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 4.0
 Set   K  E  TA   Pct
   1  17  9  37  .216   Site: Long Beach State (Walter Pyramid)
   2  18  5  37  .351   Date: Apr 02, 2010   Attend: 797   Time: 1:56
   3  16  4  26  .462   Referees: Kevin Cull, Scott Hogue
   4  12  9  32  .094