BYU men’s volleyball keeps the momentum rolling with a 4-1 victory over Cal Baptist Friday night at the Smith Fieldhouse.
Jake Langlois led the Cougars with 15 kills hitting a .500 hitting clip. Brenden Sander followed close with 14 kills hitting a .522. Middle blocker Price Jarman collected eight kills with an impressive .615 hitting clip. BYU totaled 11 aces during the night.
“(The plan) was to come out aggressive and assertive from the start,” head coach Shawn Olmstead said. “I feel like we put a lot of pressure on them with our serves and it was definitely part of the plan.”
BYU started the set with an ace from Langlois, followed by a five point run. BYU continued the offensive effort going with big kills from Sander and Dobbert leading the way. The Cougars took the first set 25-16.
Sander started the second set with back-to-back kills. The Lancers fought back and the team battled it out but kill from Langlois followed by an ace gave BYU a four point lead at 15-11. Four more aces and five more kills from Sander gave BYU the second set at 25-17.
A kill from Joe Grosh started the third set for the Cougars. The Cougars stayed consistently strong on the offensive with kills from Langlois (3-1), Leo Durkin (7-5), and Dobbert (8-5, 10-6) but the Lancers fought their back to catch up to the Cougars 13-14.
After minutes of dispute, BYU had three points deducted from their score due to a rotation violation (11-13). Langlois started the play again with a big kill to push the score to 12-13 then minutes later tie the score up at 14-14.
Jarman’s kill gave BYU another lead at 18-17. The Cougars struggled defensively the rest of the set and the Lancers took the third set 30-28.
BYU bounced back from the loss and an ace from Dobbert sealed a Cougar lead at 5-2. The Cougars stayed hot and a Dobbert kill off the Lancer block put BYU at 19-9. Sander drilled the ball to the floor to put BYU in reach of match point at 20-10. Cal Baptist fought back but were unable to make up the deficit and a kill from Tanner Skabelund gave BYU the match at 25-15.
The Cougars will return to the Smith Fieldhouse March 17 and 18 to play No. 4 Hawaii.
