BYU volleyball takes down UVU in season closer

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The No. 16 BYU women’s volleyball team closed the season with a 3-0 sweep against Utah Valley University Tuesday.

Freshman Alexa Gray goes for a kill against San Diego

BYU Head Coach Shawn Olmstead said the Cougars played a good match against a tough UVU team.

“I like how the girls responded because this can be a scary match,” Olmstead said. “UVU is good. They won their conference championship and it can always be a little scary. We didn’t come out flat. We came out ready to roll and it was just awesome.”

Junior opposite hitter Jennifer Hamson lead the Cougars with 13 kills and hit .455. Freshman Alexa Gray followed close behind with 12 kills, hitting .333. Senior setter Heather Hannemann contributed 29 assists to the Cougars and 12 digs. Sophomore Tia Withers and freshman Ciara Parker contributed an impressive 14 and 10 digs respectively to push the Cougars to victory.

Hamson said she did her best to bring energy to the court and help her team out and she was impressed with how well the team played.

“Sometimes it’s hard to play your best against a team like UVU,” Hamson said. “UVU’s really good, but we were able to come out strong, which is something we really wanted to do. We improved today so that was great.”

The match against UVU improved the Cougars’ record to 26-3. The Cougars stand 13-3 in the West Coast Conference and came out of the WCC tournament last week securing a share in the tournament title with San Diego.

Gray said the Cougars fought hard against UVU and are looking forward to the NCAA tournament.

“I thought we played really consistently,” Gray said. “We kept the pressure on them and played our game. They fought well and they had some good plays. We’re looking forward to the tournament and working hard to do our best at that.”

The Cougars now await the NCAA tournament bid Sunday to find out their next opponent. The Cougars won the automatic bid over San Diego by taking more sets in their series with San Diego.

The NCAA selections take place Sunday at 4 p.m. EST and can be viewed online at NCAA.com or ESPNU.

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