Cougars remain unbeaten at home

PROVO, Utah – The BYU women’s volleyball team remained unbeaten at home beating Portland 3-0 (25-22, 25-12, 25-12) Thursday. With the win, the Cougars improved to 6-0 on Elaine Michaelis Court. 

The Cougars pushed their record to 17-1, 5-1 WCC. Portland falls to 6-15, 0-7 WCC on the season.

“We started out a little slow tonight,” head coach Shawn Olmstead said. “I told them to just keep the pressure on Portland and just let the points come to them. We calmed down and things just started to unfold and that’s when we started to score more and play better.”

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Heather Hannemann notched her fifth double-double of the season with 28 assists and 12 digs. Alexa Gray and Jennifer Hamson led the Cougars with 10 kills each.

Christina Harris led the Pilots with 10 kills and Monica Jordan finished with 18 assists.  

Portland jumped out to the early 10-5 lead in the first set, capitalizing on a couple of errors by the Cougars and forcing BYU to call a timeout. After the timeout, the Cougars responded with a 7-2 run led by the serving of Ciara Parker and three kills by Kimberly Dahl to tie the score at 13. The home team continued to press, keeping ahead of Portland by at least three points. Kathryn LeCheminant finished off the scoring with a block to win the set 25-22.

The back and forth battle continued early in the second set with both teams committing service errors, leaving the score knotted at 6-6. Three kills by Nicole Warner sparked a 6-1 run to push the lead to 12-7. Portland fought back to bring the score to 15-11 before BYU went on a 10-1 run to win the set, highlighted by four kills by Hamson and three kills by Gray.

Hannemann continued her dominant serving into the third set to open with an early 6-0 lead. The Cougars went on another 8-2 run to force the Pilots to take another timeout. After BYU pushed the lead to 20-2, Portland fought back, going on a 9-4 run before Gray closed out the set with a block to finish the match.

The next match is Saturday at home at 7:30 p.m. against San Francisco on Elaine Michaelis Court on BYUtv.