After beating San Francisco — the best defensive team in the conference — on Thursday, the BYU women’s volleyball team also took it to the Santa Clara Broncos. BYU beat Santa Clara in a 3-0 sweep on the Broncos’ home court (25-11, 25-19, 25-22).
“It was a good match for us,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “We served tough and we blocked well. The girls did a fantastic job today like they have all week.”
The Cougars (18-7, 7-4) shut down the Broncos’ offense in the first set, only allowing 11 points. BYU jumped out to a 5-0 lead, while the Broncos (9-12, 4-6) struggled behind the service line. A combination of Santa Clara errors and good ball control from the Cougars resulted in a BYU blowout.
“We got them out of their game and our girls just got going,” Olmstead said. “We executed our game plan the way we wanted to and it paid off.”
Santa Clara looked as if it was going to step up its game in the second set, but BYU quickly demolished the Broncos’ hopes of taking the set. Sophomore opposite hitter Jennifer Hamson put the Santa Clara defense to the test and attacked their back row. The Broncos continued to make mistakes, while the Cougars took advantage of it. Santa Clara managed to score a few quick points, but the Cougars finished strong and won the second set by six.
“As a team we blocked really well,” Hamson said. “We got on them and they could not get around our blockers and it worked out for us.”
The third set was the closest game of the match, but BYU played too strong on both sides of the ball for Santa Clara.
Hamson led the team in kills with 16, and junior Heather Hannemann distributed the ball well with 29 assists. The Cougars only had nine errors and 9.5 team blocks compared to the Broncos’ 27 errors and three team blocks.
“We did not plan on focusing solely on attacking the ball,” Olmstead said. “We focused on serving well and playing good defense and that helped us get a win.”
This week the Cougars return to Provo to play a tough Loyola Marymount squad (12-11, 5-5). In their last matchup, the Cougars won 3-2 on the road. The match will be played in the Smith Fieldhouse at 7 p.m.
