By ROSEMARY LARSEN
The Cougar women’s volleyball team took a break from conference wars to take on Idaho State Tuesday night in Pocatello. The match ended in success for the travelling Cougars beating the Bengals in three games with scores of 15-7, 15-1 and 15-8.
The strong BYU offense was headed up by senior Amy Steele Gant who had 14 kills and a hitting percentage of .417. Helen Hjorth checked in with 11 kills and had the most digs with 13.
“Idaho has done some good things this year,” said Cougar coach Elaine Michaelis. “They’re a quality team.”
But on Tuesday, the Bengals were shut down with only one player reaching over five kills. Idaho State’s Karalie Larson had nine kills and hit .240.
Unfortunately for the Bengals, one player cannot carry the team to a victory.
At the end of the first game, the Bengals had a -.077 hitting percentage and six of their 24 total kills. BYU also got off to a slow start with 15 of it’s 53 total kills in the first game, working up to hit 21 in the third and final game.
Cougar junior Korie Rogers had nine kills and six blocks followed closely by senior Rachel Greene who had a .875 percentage with seven kills and eight blocks.
Heather Whittaker added to the Cougar offense with six kills, hitting .667.
“I think we played pretty well considering the three and a half hour drive,” Gant said.
The Cougars held the Bengals to an overall hitting percentage of -.043, keeping Idaho out of the match from the beginning. BYU ended up hitting .327 and won the match in just over one hour.
With the win over Idaho State, BYU continues to lead the series between the two teams, now at 21 games to one. BYU has a season record of 13-4.
Pocatello was just the beginning of four straight away matches for the Cougars. The BYU team goes to Colorado Springs tomorrow to continue WAC play against the Falcons of Air Force in the two team’s first meeting.
“Air Force is in a rebuilding process after losing basically everyone before last season,” Michaelis said. “We’re just looking for an opportunity to go play our own volleyball and work on the things we need to work on.”
The Cougars go from there to Las Vegas for a Saturday night match against UNLV. “I don’t know much about UNLV. I do know they did a good job of recruiting and have good coaching,” said Michaelis. BYU leads the series against UNLV one game to none.
The final game in the four-game stretch is in Fort Worth, Texas where the Cougars will face Texas Christian University where BYU leads the series 2-1.
