BYU Sweeps No. 13 UCSB to Win 11th Straight

SANTA BARBARA -- Defeating its third straight ranked opponent, No. 12 BYU extended its winning streak to 11 matches late Friday with a three-game sweep of No. 13 UC Santa Barbara, 15-5, 15-13, 15-5, at the Thunderdome in Santa Barbara, Calif.

The Cougars, now 24-6 on the year, have won three straight road matches over ranked teams, including last week's Mountain West Conference Tournament wins over then No. 4 Colorado State and then No. 19 Utah. The NCAA Tournament automatic qualifier from the MWC, BYU will learn of its tournament pairing Sunday when the 64-team field is announced. BYU is expected to be one of 16 schools to host the first and second rounds of the tournament.

"We really played well," BYU coach Elaine Michaelis said of Friday's win. "Our block was a major factor. We intimidated them a little with our block and our offense was really clicking when we had the pass -- they really couldn't stop us. They were keying on Nina (Puikkonen), which opened up the outsides, but Nina still hit very well."

After jumping on the Gauchos in game one, BYU got down four points early in the second game thanks to strong serving by UCSB. The Cougars made adjustments and were able to eventually pull even at 13-13 on their way to the 15-13 win. BYU dominated the third game, again only allowing five UCSB points.

Puikkonen led the Cougar attack with 12 kills while hitting .500, but got significant help from BYU's outside hitters as senior Melissa Layton put down 11 kills, Sunny Tonga 10 and Kalani Tonga eight. Layton has tallied double-digit kills in five straight matches. Sunny Tonga hit a BYU season-high .769 attack percentage with no errors in 13 attempts while Layton added a strong .556 percentage to the BYU attack. The Cougars hit .418, their third-highest percentage of the season, while the Gauchos felt the intimidation of BYU's block, hitting just .157. BYU totaled 13.5 team blocks to UCSB's six.

Cougar junior middle blocker Jackie Bundy had a match-best seven blocks while Layton added six. Layton and Kalani Tonga had a team-best seven digs for BYU. Freshman all-conference setter Karina Puikkonen tossed up 40 assists and added six digs in the win.

Simone Kuhn and Danielle Bauer, who had 15 and 13 kills, respectively, led UCSB. The Gauchos, who dropped to 23-7 overall with the loss, will be making their record-tying 19th NCAA Tournament appearance this year, while the Cougars, who have only missed one post-season event, will play in their 18th overall and 11th in a row. The BYU win evened the overall series between the two national powers at 7-7-1.

Volleyball Box Score
      BYU Cougars vs UC Santa Barbara (Nov 24, 2000 at Santa Barbara, CA)
    BYU Cougars            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  PUIKKONEN, Karina...  3|  4   2   8  .250| 40|  1   0|  0|  6| 1  1  0|  2
 9  PUIKKONEN, Nina.....  3| 12   2  20  .500|  0|  0   2|  0|  5| 1  3  2|  0
 10 BUNDY, Jackie.......  3|  8   5  17  .176|  0|  0   1|  0|  7| 0  7  0|  0
 12 LAYTON, Melissa.....  3| 11   1  18  .556|  0|  2   2|  0|  3| 0  6  0|  0
 14 TONGA, Kalani.......  3|  8   3  20  .250|  1|  0   1|  2|  7| 0  2  0|  0
 15 TONGA, Sunny........  3| 10   0  13  .769|  4|  0   0|  2|  2| 0  4  0|  0
 2  WHITTAKER, Natalie..  3|  1   0   2  .500|  0|  0   0|  0|  5| 0  0  0|  0
 3  CRABBE, Uila........  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   1|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  1
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 54  13  98  .418| 45|  3   7|  4| 38| 2 23  2|  3
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 13.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  12  7  26  .192   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  23  3  40  .500   BYU Cougars......... 15 15 15  24-6
   3  19  3  32  .500   UC Santa Barbara....  5 13  5  23-7
    UC Santa Barbara       |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  Lampe, Brieanna.....  3|  1   5  12 -.333|  2|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  1  1|  0
 5  Rundle, Brooke......  3|  0   0   2  .000| 18|  0   1|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  2
 8  Menzel, Erica.......  3|  7   4  25  .120|  0|  1   0|  2|  2| 0  1  0|  0
 12 Bauer, Danielle.....  3| 13   7  25  .240|  0|  1   1|  0|  3| 1  1  0|  0
 15 Kuhn, Simone........  3| 15   6  30  .300|  0|  1   2|  0|  8| 2  2  0|  0
 16 Niles, Brooke.......  3|  1   2   6 -.167| 22|  0   0|  0|  9| 0  1  0|  1
 7  Guerra, Courtney....  3|  7   2  20  .250|  0|  1   0|  0|  3| 0  0  0|  0
 9  McFarland, Casey....  2|  1   0   1 1.000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
    TEAM................   |                 |   |       |  1|   |        |
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 45  26 121  .157| 42|  4   4|  3| 26| 3  6  1|  3
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 6.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1   6 11  30 -.167   Site: Santa Barbara, CA (The Thunderdome)
   2  27  7  51  .392   Date: Nov 24, 2000   Attend: 548   Time: 1:30
   3  12  8  40  .100   Referees: Rick Olmstead, Marvin Hall