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Cougar volleyball manhandles No. 2 UC-Irvine |
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JaredLloyd | Saturday, February 3, 2007, 12:09 am
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Darnell Dickson
DAILY HERALD
It’s not supposed to be this easy, is it?
When the No. 1 and No. 2 teams meet in any sport, a certain amount of suspense is expected. But there was no suspense on Friday night in the Smith Fieldhouse as the top-ranked BYU men’s volleyball team destroyed No. 2 UC Irvine 30-21, 30-22, 30-27 in front of 5,753 fans, many of whom arrived four hours before first serve in order to preserve a seat.
What they saw was a complete domination by the home team from start to finish in less than two hours. When BYU wasn’t ripping through the Anteaters with its balanced offense, UCI was spraying the ball all over the gym like a weekend golfer on the practice tee.
“If I were coming in here to play us, I’d be afraid of BYU,” Cougar junior outside hitter Ivan Perez said.
"I mean, who are you going to block? You can’t just key on one player.”
Indeed, three different players — Perez, Yosleyder Cala and Robby Stowell — had nine kills each to lead the BYU attack, and the Cougars also got 11 kills combined from middles Russell Holmes and Rodnei Santos.
UC Irvine, which was ranked No. 1 in the country until last week’s loss at Pepperdine, had a whopping 27 hitting errors and 20 service errors. Unofficially, 39 of BYU’s 90 points came by simply watching the Anteaters hit the ball into the net or out of bounds.
Not a very good representation by the No. 2 team in the nation, but give BYU some credit for that, too.
“They made some errors, but we blocked in some good spots,” BYU co-head coach Shawn Patchell said. “I was a little worried what we’d do with the big crowd, but the guys stuck to the game plan. Part of UCI making errors was us being disciplined.”
BYU (9-0 overall, 5-0 MPSF) trailed only once in Game 1 and took advantage of 22 UCI errors (13 hitting, nine serving). A kill from Cala and another from Santos, coupled with a UCI hitting error, gave BYU a 26-16 lead. Perez used the block to score the winner on second game point.
Game 2 was tied at 17-all but the Cougars ended on a 13-5 run. Holmes and setter Yamil Perez contributed aces and BYU won it on another UCI serving error.
UC Irvine (10-2, 5-2) finally started keeping the ball in the court in Game 3, which reached 25 points all tied up. But more errors by UCI and a kill from Holmes turned the game in BYU’s favor and, at second match point, Holmes roofed UCI’s attempt to keep the ball in play for the winner.
It was BYU’s eighth three-game sweep in nine matches.
“That says we have some good chemistry,” Patchell said. “It means we’re a well-balanced team.”
BYU lost twice in five games last year at UCI, so the Cougars were particularly focused for this weekend.
“We’d been preparing for this match for a long time,” Ivan Perez said. “We wanted to send a message. People were saying we hadn’t been tested yet and we wanted to come out and beat them.”
BYU was particularly effective against last year’s national player of the year, UCI senior Jayson Jablonsky, who had just six kills in 16 attacks and hit .000. UCI hit just .146 as a team and got outblocked by BYU 11.0 to 5.5.
The two teams will meet again tonight at 7.
∫ Daily Herald Sports Editor Darnell Dickson can be reached at 344-2555 or by e-mail at
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