By Ben Schroeder
Riding a six-game winning streak and a No. 4 ranking, BYU men?s volleyball team didn?t let Stanford block their path. With rocket serves and power spelled in every kill, the Cougars swept the Cardinals 3-0 (30-24, 30-24, 30-25) Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 in the Smith Fieldhouse.
“Anytime you beat a Stanford team, it”s a good thing,” BYU head coach Tom Peterson said. “But we didn”t play our best match. We need to cut down on our passing mistakes and stop missing serves.”
Senior Fernando Pessoa lead all players with 16 kills on the night with a .700 hitting percentage for Friday night. Senior outside hitter Joe Hillman also recorded 10 kills for the Cougars with only two errors.
The Cougars registered a great come back in game two. Down five points, BYU slowly came back to tie it at 20 and never looked back behind Joe Hillman?s serving and a crowd of 3,562.
During BYU?s comeback, senior outside hitter Chris Gorny suffered an ankle injury. He was taken in for X-rays. Gorny didn?t return and team officials reported a right ankle sprain. An MRI has been scheduled for Monday.
“There might be a bone moving around in the ankle and we need to look at it closer to see,” Peterson said.
Saturday, Stanford played with more consistent sets and jumped on BYU. But the Cougars found their selves overcoming the odds even when errors at the end of game one plagued BYU.
At 37-36, no one seemed to want to get the last point until senior Shawn Olmstead dove for the dig, bouncing the ball perfectly for BYU setter Carlos Moreno to set up one of 10 kills for Jonathan Alleman to end the game at 38-36.
“If we would have kept up the pace (service errors) in game one, I think we would have set an NCAA record,” Peterson said. “But then we had only three errors in game two and then seven in the last game. It”s driving me nuts. It drove the crowd nuts in game one. I think the crowd started cheering every time we made a serve in that first game.”
BYU followed up game one with a win in game two. As close as it was by the score, the Cougars never let Stanford take the lead winning 30-28.
Even with a six-game losing steak for Stanford, the Cardinals gave BYU fits and never let the Cougars run away with the game. Constant double hits and net violations let Stanford stay close all night. But BYU didn?t let that slow them down as they won game three 30-25.
The Cougars will be on the road next week to play No. 8 UC Irvine Feb. 26 and 28. BYU is now 9-3 on the season with a 7-1 conference record. This is the longest winning streak for the Cougars since the 2001 season, when BYU won 10 straight matches on their way to a National Title.
