The No. 14 BYU women’s volleyball team improved to 9-1 after defeating No. 16 Utah in five sets (16-25, 25-13, 25-17, 20-25, 18-16) on Thursday night at the Huntsman Center.
“I thought we played great,” said BYU coach Heather Olmstead. “I thought we were doing exactly what we wanted. That’s volleyball. It’s going to go either way. I’m so proud of our girls. We did a good job of distributing the ball tonight and getting our hitters in rhythm.”
???#GoCougs #BYUWVB #DFDuel pic.twitter.com/7IUnerUbnT
— BYU WomensVolleyball (@BYUwvolleyball) September 15, 2017
Veronica Jones-Perry led the Cougars with 25 kills while McKenna Miller had 15.
Utah jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the first set. BYU would cut the Utes’ lead to three later in the set, but the Cougars never came any closer and Utah won the set 25-16.
BYU won the next two sets before Utah claimed the fourth to force a final set.
The teams traded points in the fifth set until back-to-back kills from Jones-Perry and an error from Utah gave BYU an 8-6 lead.
Another kill from Jones-Perry, coupled with kills from Miller and Cosy Burnett pushed BYU’s lead to 12-9 before three-straight points from Utah tied the game at 12-12.
Again, the teams traded points, passing the minimum score of 15 points to a 16-16 deadlock.
From there, kills from Jones-Perry and Alohi Robins-Hardy sealed the victory for the Cougars.
Last night we #BeatUtah.
Here's the winning match point.#GoCougs #BYUWVB pic.twitter.com/ehIEhilW7H
— BYU WomensVolleyball (@BYUwvolleyball) September 15, 2017
BYU returns home to face Weber State tonight, Sept. 15, at 7 p.m. MDT and will make the short trip to Orem to face Utah Valley in the UCCU Crosstown Clash on Saturday at 7 p.m. MDT.
