No. 12 BYU defeated Loyola Marymount in three sets (25-19, 25-9, 25-23) at the Smith Fieldhouse Thursday night.
Junior libero Ciara Parker led BYU with 20 digs, breaking the BYU all-time dig record in her third season as a Cougar. She has 1,131 career digs and is averaging 14.2 per match this season.
“I’m happy with the girls’ performance through the first two, but it’s nice to battle,” head coach Shawn Olmstead said. “We can still get better, but I thought it was nice to see other girls do nice things, too.”
With the Cougars (17-3, 8-1) down 15-9 in the third set, Olmstead called a timeout for BYU. The Cougars responded after the timeout as freshman Cosy Burnett had back-to-back kills to inch the Cougars back into the set. BYU continued to claw its way back into the game led by a pair of kills from Alexa Gray. The Cougars tied the set up at 18-18 after an error from the Lions (17-4, 5-4). BYU took the lead at 20-19, the Cougars were able to finish out the set and the match with a kill by Gray to make the score 25-23.
BYU started off the first set slowly, and the Lions took an early lead. The Cougars fell behind by as much as four points at 11-7 before they started to climb back into the game. BYU tied the set up at 14-14 after a kill by Nobles and finished out the set on a 11-5 run led by kills from Nobles, Jennifer Hamson, Gray, Amy Boswell and Whitney Young.
BYU jumped out to a quick 10-4 lead in the second set. With the score at 13-7, BYU went on a 6-0 run after some sloppy play from LMU and kills from Nobles and Hamson. Th Cougars easily won the second set, 25-9.
Hamson and Gray led the Cougars with 13 kills apiece. Nobles also contributed with a solid game, recording eight kills and 11 digs. Boswell led the Cougars with nine blocks, and Camry Godfrey Willardson had 39 assists.
BYU stays home Saturday and takes on the Pepperdine Waves at 1 p.m. The game will be televised on BYUtv and is available for live stream through byutv.org.
