No. 20 BYU women's volleyball falls short in revenge game as No. 15 Arizona State sweeps Cougars

In a rematch of last year's NCAA tournament showdown, BYU faced a similar result as it was swept 25-17, 25-17, 25-20 by the Arizona State Sun Devils Friday night in Tempe.

In last year's game, the Cougars were swept 25-20, 25-10, 25-21 as both teams were vying for a spot in the Sweet 16. Now facing Arizona State as conference members for the first time, BYU faced deficits early and often.

In the first set, the Cougars fell 10-3 after an 8-0 run by the Sun Devils that saw them have two aces and three kills. On the other side of the court, the Cougars had three errors, with two being attack errors and one being a service error that kickstarted the ASU run.

Later in the second and third sets, BYU was down 6-2 both times. Its struggles to gain momentum early-on lasted the entire game and proved to be a major advantage for ASU.

Playing down early in sets didn’t discourage the Cougars as they rallied back with runs in the first two sets to tie the game. However, ASU had strong responses and closed out the first and second sets with runs of 12-4 and 13-5.

While the third set was the most competitive of the game and saw Big 12 offensive player of the week Geli Cyr momentarily leave the game due to a collision with a teammate, it still wasn’t enough to beat Arizona State.

The score of indicative of ASU's dominance throughout the night.

Whenever the Sun Devils weren’t making a play, it seemed BYU had one of its 30 total errors right before it could generate any momentum to go on a big run. 18 of the 30 errors were attack errors causing the hit percentage to be .124 for the Cougars, a new season-low after having a season low against Arizona the game before.

Along with that, ASU's 51 digs helped extend plays and win points that seemed primed to be won by the Cougars. Mary Shroll led ASU with 17 digs.

With this loss, BYU falls to 2-2 in conference play and still seeks its first ranked win of the season along with its first Big-12 road win. BYU will also look to bounce back after having its first loss of the season not go to five sets.

ASU was led by Claire Jeter and her 11 kills, but the team featured 3 other players with 7+ kills to go along with a hit percentage of .284. BYU’s Claire Little led the team with 9 kills of her own.

Big 12 rookie of the week Alex Bower continued to lead BYU in assists as she has done all season with 24 of the team's 30. She was also a dig short of having a double-double.

BYU will have another chance to get revenge against ASU with another regular season matchup scheduled on Halloween night in Provo.

While it will be a while before BYU will be having an away game to get its first conference road win, there will be two chances to capture a win against ranked opponents with current No.14 Baylor and No. 22 TCU traveling to Provo this week.

The Cougars face Baylor Thursday at 7 p.m. on FS1.