Porter Leads BYU To Victory

PALO ALTO -- The No. 9 BYU women's volleyball team got back on track at the Stanford Invitational with a sweep (32-30, 30-22, 31-29) of Saint Mary's Friday night, improving to 6-1 on the year. Now with 999 all-time program victories, the Cougars will look to make it 1,000 on Saturday.

"I'm very proud of this team," said BYU head coach Jason Watson. "We got better tonight. We responded well to a very tough team in Saint Mary's. I'm especially proud of the way we closed out game three, particularly the play of Bryn Porter. She was clutch for us tonight and played unbelievably."

Porter paced the Cougars with a career-high 17 kills while tying her personal best of nine digs. She was all over the court for the Cougars, coming up with huge back-to-back kills with BYU facing game point in game three. Senior Chelsea Goodman recorded her 39th career double-double with 15 kills and 13 digs, tying her for second all-time in Mountain West Conference history. Erica Lott (14 kills, 11 digs) and Kiana Rogers (53 assists, 12 digs) also posted double-doubles while Annie Pinegar led BYU with 23 digs and Rachel Dyer tallied a team-best six blocks.

As a team, the Cougars hit .333 for the match while recording 63 kills, 70 digs and seven blocks. On the other side of the net, Saint Mary's hit .215 while totaling 48 kills, 57 digs and seven blocks.

Game one started with a battle as the Gaels slowly built up an 8-6 lead only to see the Cougars turn it around with a 7-1 run led by Lott to go up 13-9. From there BYU cruised to a 26-18 advantage and looked to be in control until Saint Mary's began to climb back. Within minutes, the Cougars found themselves staring at game point, 29-28. But BYU put away four of the next five points capped by back-to-back winners from Porter to take the game 32-30.

Fans experienced deja vu to start the second game as Saint Mary's ran up an 8-7 lead until the Cougars scored four straight to go up 12-8. However, unlike the first game, BYU ran away with it from there, posting a 30-22 game-two victory.

The Cougars jumped out to an early lead in game three, 7-3, and kept the Gaels on their heels through the first half. After Saint Mary's came back to tie it up at 14-14, BYU put together a 7-2 run to put the game seemingly out of reach at 21-16. But the Gaels weren't done yet, and, as they did in game one, they stormed back with a 9-2 spurt to go up 25-23. BYU managed to tie the game at 27-27, but back-to-back Gael winners had the Cougars once again facing game point. Enter Porter once again. The junior outside hitter put away back-to-back kills during four straight Cougar points to help BYU take the game 31-29.

BYU will close out the Stanford Invitational on Saturday night against the No. 2 Stanford Cardinal (6-0). The match will begin at 7 p.m. PST (8 p.m. MST) and can be followed on BYU Radio, via CSTV All-Access or on live stats.

                              Volleyball Box Score
                                  BYU Cougars
         Saint Mary's vs #9 BYU Cougars (Sep 07, 2007 at Stanford, CA)
    Saint Mary's           |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 6  JAECKEL, Lauren.....  3|  7   1  15  .400|  0|  1   1|  1|  0| 0  1  0|  0|   8.5
 7  GROESS, Taylor......  3| 13   9  44  .091|  0|  1   1|  1|  6| 0  2  0|  0|  15.0
 8  YORK, Megan.........  3| 13   4  49  .184|  0|  2   1|  2| 14| 0  0  0|  0|  15.0
 10 LOWELL, Shannon.....  3|  7   0  13  .538|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 1  1  0|  0|   8.5
 11 BURTON, Megan.......  3|  6   2  18  .222|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 1  3  0|  0|   8.5
 14 KAMANA'O, Kapua.....  3|  0   0   1  .000| 29|  0   1|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  1|   0.0
 1  THOMPSON, Erin......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  1|  0   0|  0|  1| 0  0  0|  0|   0.0
 3  BARKER, Brittany....  3|  2   1   4  .250|  0|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  2  0|  0|   3.0
 5  PAYNE, Christy......  3|  0   0   0  .000| 15|  2   1|  0|  6| 0  0  0|  1|   2.0
 12 FISHER, Alita.......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  3   1|  1| 20| 0  0  0|  0|   3.0
 13 GONZALEZ, Nikki.....  1|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  0   0|  0|  2| 0  1  0|  0|   0.5
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 48  17 144  .215| 45|  9   6|  5| 57| 2 10  0|  2|  64.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  13  6  44  .159   GAME SCORES               1  2  3  TEAM RECORDS
   2  18  8  53  .189   Saint Mary's........ (0) 30 22 29  5-2
   3  17  3  47  .298   BYU Cougars......... (3) 32 30 31  6-1
    BYU Cougars            |     ATTACK      |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|  BLOCK |GEN
 ## Name                 GP|  K   E  TA   PCT|  A| SA  SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE|POINTS
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  GOODMAN, Chelsea....  3| 15   5  35  .286|  3|  0   1|  0| 13| 0  1  0|  1|  15.5
 4  HANSEN, Ashton......  3|  8   1  13  .538|  2|  0   0|  0|  0| 0  1  0|  1|   8.5
 9  ROGERS, Kiana.......  3|  1   1   5  .000| 53|  1   2|  0| 12| 0  1  0|  0|   2.5
 10 LOTT, Erica.........  3| 14   4  34  .294|  1|  1   0|  4| 11| 0  3  1|  0|  16.5
 13 PORTER, Bryn........  3| 17   3  39  .359|  0|  1   2|  2|  9| 0  2  0|  0|  19.0
 44 DYER, Rachel........  3|  8   0  21  .381|  1|  1   2|  0|  2| 0  6  0|  0|  12.0
 11 PINEGAR, Annie......  3|  0   0   0  .000|  0|  1   1|  3| 23| 0  0  0|  0|   1.0
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals..............  3| 63  14 147  .333| 60|  5   8|  9| 70| 0 14  1|  2|  75.0
 TEAM ATTACK PER GAME                               TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 7.0
 Game  K  E  TA   Pct
   1  21  6  47  .319   Site: Stanford, CA (Maples Pavilion)
   2  17  2  46  .326   Date: Sep 07, 2007   Attend: 636   Time: 1:47
   3  25  6  54  .352   Referees: Michael Yoshikawa, Larry Schwartz