No. 14 BYU Women's Volleyball Loses To No. 3 Colorado State

FORT COLLINS -- In its third match of the season against a top-ranked team, the No. 14 BYU women's volleyball team was defeated by No. 3 Colorado State 15-12, 15-6, 15-11 Friday in front of 5,307 people at Moby Arena in Fort Collins, Colo. The loss drops the Cougars to 10-4 overall and 2-1 in the Mountain West Conference play. The Rams improved to 15-1 and 2-0 in the MWC.

The match with the Rams is the third of the season that saw the Cougars face a team in the top three. BYU defeated both Stanford, who was No. 1 at the time, and Long Beach State, who was ranked No. 2 at the time, in the BYU Mizuno Classic earlier this month. The Rams dropped BYU's record against top three teams to 2-1 on the season.

Junior All-American middle blocker Nina Puikkonen led the Cougars with 13 kills and nine blocks. Junior middle blocker Jackie Bundy finished with nine kills, 12 digs and a team-high .500 hitting percentage. Freshman setter Karina Puikkonen continued her strong play with 52 assists, seven kills, a .357 hitting percentage and six blocks. She also distributed the ball to all five other Cougars well allowing four other Cougars to finish with double-digit kills.

Offensively, Colorado State was led by outside hitter Courtney Cox who finished with 16 kills. Krista Swartzendruber had 12 kills and 10 digs while Angela Knopf had 11 kills and nine digs. Soraya Santos helped the Rams with 10 kills, a .600 hitting percentage, four service aces and nine digs.

BYU has now lost four of its last five matches with the Cougars dating back to 1997. Last season, each team won its home match against the other during the regular season and Colorado State won the third match of the season -- a 3-0 win in the championship match of the Mountain West Conference Tournament.

The Cougars will travel to Wyoming Saturday to face the Cowgirls at 7 p.m.

Volleyball Box Score
      BYU Cougars vs Colorado State (Sep 29, 2000 at Fort Collins, Colo.)
    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|  7   2  14  .357| 52|  0   3|  0|  4| 0  6  0|  3
 9  PUIKKONEN, Nina.....  3| 13  11  30  .067|  1|  0   2|  2|  2| 0  9  0|  0
 10 BUNDY, Jackie.......  3|  9   1  16  .500|  0|  0   3|  1| 12| 0  3  1|  0
 12 LAYTON, Melissa.....  3| 10   5  20  .250|  1|  0   1|  1|  9| 0  2  0|  0
 14 TONGA, Kalani.......  3| 12   7  29  .172|  2|  2   0|  2|  5| 0  2  0|  0
 15 TONGA, Sunny........  3| 10   5  29  .172|  4|  0   5|  0|  9| 0  3  0|  0
 2  WHITTAKER, Natalie..  2|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  2| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 61  31 138  .217| 60|  2  14|  7| 43| 0 25  1|  3
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 12.5
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13 10  42  .071   GAME SCORES           1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  14 10  29  .138   BYU Cougars......... 12  6 11  10-4, 2-1 MWC
   3  34 11  67  .343   Colorado State...... 15 15 15  15-1, 2-0 MWC
    Colorado State         |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4  COX, Courtney.......  3| 16  10  43  .140|  0|  0   2|  0|  4| 0  2  0|  0
 5  KNOPF, Angela.......  3| 11   3  19  .421|  3|  1   4|  0|  9| 0  3  0|  0
 6  SANTOS, Soraya......  3| 10   1  15  .600|  4|  4   2|  0|  9| 0  1  0|  0
 8  SWARTZENDRUBER, Kris  3| 12   4  29  .276|  0|  1   1|  0| 10| 0  1  0|  0
 9  JENNINGS, Summer....  3|  8   5  29  .103|  0|  0   2|  1|  0| 1  4  0|  0
 15 PECKHAM, Allison....  3|  4   0   4 1.000| 51|  1   1|  0|  6| 0  3  0|  0
 17 PETTIT, Katherine...  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  1|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 20 KERR, Kelly.........  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  0  0|  0
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 61  23 139  .273| 58|  7  12|  2| 38| 1 14  0|  0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 8.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  11  9  40  .050   Site: Fort Collins, Colo. (Moby Arena)
   2  13  3  25  .400   Date: Sep 29, 2000   Attend: 5307   Time: 1:44
   3  37 11  74  .351   Referees: Patsy Malta, Tom Pingel