Top-ranked Brigham Young came into the Gold Mine Saturday night with its sights set on avenging an early-season loss to Long Beach State in Utah, and it was able to put together a convincing win in straight sets.
“They were ready to play and we weren’t,” LBSU junior setter Connor Olbright said.
LBSU (17-7, 13-5 MPSF) played toe-to-toe with BYU (17-3, 16-2 MPSF) in the first set of the night, leading 13-12 after kills from junior Taylor Crabb and senior Colton Echave.
BYU junior Taylor Sander then ignited his team with five kills in the set to give the Cougars a 25-22 win in set one.
BYU freshman Ben Patch led the Cougars with 12 kills on the night, but he said Sander was a major player in BYU’s win.
“He really did it for us tonight; hit well, served great, dug well, did everything perfectly,” Patch said.
Sets two and three were games the 49ers would soon like to forget.
“Our mind set going into the second game was just not acceptable at all,” Olbright said.
The Cougars outplayed and out-executed the ‘Niners both defensively and offensively, as they blocked well and attacked with strong hitting.
“[BYU] played well tonight, and we didn’t have a whole lot of answers for them,” LBSU head coach Alan Knipe said.
BYU led in both matches the entire time and handily took set two 25-13 and set three 25-10.
“We beat those guys earlier this year, and it was like we felt that we didn’t need to play our best volleyball in order to beat them,” Olbright said.
LBSU was out-blocked 13-4 and struggled to get hits by BYU’s seemingly impenetrable defense in sets two and three.
For the ‘Niners the losses in the final two sets were not due to a lack of effort, but a lack of execution, Knipe said.
“We could never get into a rhythm; we were half a play ahead,” he said. “I wasn’t happy with how it got away from us.”
Crabb finished the night with a team-high 11 kills for the 49ers, junior Dalton Ammerman added in nine kills of his own and Echave finished with seven kills and two blocks on the night.
Having suffered a bitter loss, fourth-ranked LBSU will look to regroup as it heads towards the latter stages of the season.
“Monday’s a new, day and we’re going to practice as hard as we can and just keep on getting better,” Olbright said. “We need to strive to get better every single day, until the end.”
LBSU will start a four-game road trip when it heads to Pacific for a match on Friday night at 7 p.m.
