PROVO, Utah—Taylor Sander’s hard hitting helped the BYU men’s volleyball team earn its senior-night sweep of No. 7 Penn State, Saturday, sending the Nittany Lions back home with a 3-0 (25-23, 25-22, 25-17) defeat.

"I thought we came out with a lot of good energy tonight," said BYU head coach Chris McGown. "We still didn't serve the way I would have liked us to, but we were better. It was nice to see that we were able to do some things in a match that we worked on last week. We're definitely improving."

The Cougars honored four seniors in Joe Kauliakamoa, Quentin Smith, Robb Stowell and Futi Tavana before the match began. Stowell leads BYU in the rally scoring era for career kills and Tavana leads for career blocks.

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"It's a little interesting," McGown said. "I think we've disconnected ourselves from the fact that this is the last time they'll play a regular season match here, we just keep thinking we still have a lot of volleyball ahead of us. They all played really hard and I was proud of them and their effort tonight."

Against the Lions, Taylor Sander led the Cougar attack with 20 kills on .515 hitting, aided by Kauliakamoa’s 41 assists. Smith led the team with five blocks. Sander also contributed two aces to put him in third place for his career aces in the BYU rally scoring era. 

Neither team could take a convincing lead as the first set began, resulting in four ties until a Cougar attack error put Penn State ahead by four points. A 4-1 run, including two kills by Sander, put BYU back within one at 21-20.

An unanswered tip by Smith put the Cougars in position to tie up the set. Smith teamed up with Josue Rivera to block Penn State’s Tom Comfort for the 22-22 tie. Back-to-back blocks by Smith, the first a solo and second an assist with Kauliakamoa, gave BYU the highly contested first set at 25-23.

The Nittany Lions took the lead to start the second set, but BYU wouldn’t let them run away with it. The Cougars kept the set within two. BYU finally took a 13-12 lead on a kill from Sander, which tapped a Nittany Lion and flew out of bounds. Kauliakamoa drove the ball into an unguarded back corner to push the Cougars ahead 16-13, the largest lead of the set.

An out-of-bounds kill attempt by BYU tied the score up 18-18, but Sander didn’t let Penn State take advantage. His kill and assist to Rivera put the Cougars back in front 20-18. Sander broke Penn State’s block with his 10th kill of the set for a 24-21 lead and Smith finished it with a kill of his own.

Futi Tavana showed up strong after the break, making four of BYU’s first nine points in the final set and putting the Cougars in the lead from the first point. BYU allowed a brief, one-point Penn State lead before punching out three straight points. Ahead 15-14, BYU took a 6-0 run to finish the match for good. Penn State was unable to recover and the Cougars finished the sweep 25-17.

The Cougars head into the MPSF tournament next weekend, hosting their quarterfinal match Saturday in the Smith Fieldhouse at 7 p.m. Their opponent and seed have not been determined.

PROVO - The No. 4 BYU men's volleyball team closes out its regular season this weekend, Friday and Saturday, at home when they host No. 7 Penn State. Both matches will begin at 7 p.m. MT, will be shown live on BYUtv and online for free at byutvsports.com/gameday.

Saturday's match is also Senior Day. The Cougars will honor Robb Stowell, Futi Tavana, Quentin Smith and Joe Kauliakamoa for their contributions to the BYU squad over the year.

BYU is riding a 21-6 overall record after splitting last weekend’s road matches against UCLA. The one win secured the Cougars a home MPSF Quarterfinal match.

Stowell leads the Cougar offense on 348 kills with four other players recording 100+ kills and six more recording double-digit kills. Taylor Sander, Josue Rivera, Russ Lavaja and Tavana have totaled 346, 237, 158 and 142 kills, respectively. Lavaja leads the team with 149 blocks and is third all-time in BYU history for total blocks. Tavana’s season total 118 blocks is second most on the team.

Tavana is now the all-time blocks leader & block assist leader in BYU’s rally scoring era and is just three away from becoming the solo blocks leader. Kauliakamoa leads the squad with 990 assists.

The Cougars are averaging 3.2 blocks per set and currently lead the nation for it.

Penn State comes to Provo on a seven-match win streak and have already clinched its conference’s regular season title. The Lions have the top winning percentage in the NCAA with a 20-3, 13-0 record this season. 

Joe Sunder leads the Lions on 272 kills and 3.63 average per set. Four other players are also recording 100+ kills on the season. Aaron Russell leads the squad with 79 total blocks and a 1.03 average per set.

The Cougars lead the overall record against the Lions, 8-6.

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