The BYU men's volleyball team huddles to celebrate after scoring a point. (BYU Photo)
The No. 3 seed BYU men’s volleyball team swept No. 6 seed Barton (25-19, 25-11, 25-15) Tuesday night at St. John Arena to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament.
“Congrats to Barton College on an outstanding season,” said BYU coach Shawn Olmstead. “A huge congrats to our guys as well. It was a nice team effort tonight. We did a good job from the service line and a great job attacking. We can still improve our passing so we're going to work on that, but overall, a great team performance from our guys.”
The first set was tight until Joseph Grosh killed an overpass to put BYU up 19-14.
Brenden Sanders served up an ace at set point to win it for the Cougars, 25-19.
BYU jumped out to an 8-1 lead in the second set behind back-to-back aces from Leo Durkin.
Barton cut into the lead before four-straight BYU points put the Cougars up 15-5 before going on to win the set 25-11.
Down two sets to none, the Bulldogs took an 8-7 lead to start the third set.
A Sanders kill and three consecutive aces from Patch put BYU up for good at 20-14. The Cougars would win the final set 25-15.
The Cougars advance to the semifinal round and will face No. 2 seed Long Beach State on Thursday at 4 p.m. MDT at St. John Arena.