Oct. 9, 2010
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OREM, Utah - In front of a record-breaking crowd at the Activity Center, Utah Valley's women's volleyball fell 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-20) to the Brigham Young Cougars Saturday night.
"When you don't play your best, you try to evaluate and see what you need to be better at," said UVU head coach Sam Atoa. "We got beat by a better team tonight, they exposed some weaknesses that we hope to get better at."
Neither team was able to take a larger lead than two points in the first set until BYU (5-12) went on a 6-0 run to extend their lead to 16-9. The Wolverines (11-9) weren't able to close the gap and ultimately lost the set 25-17. Junior Chelsey Heaps had four kills, but UVU wasn't able to recover from giving up 15 kills on defense.
The Cougars were up to much of the same in the second set jumping out to a 13-9 lead after a small run. This time the Wolverines were able to close the gap and tie it at 18-all to force a BYU timeout. After the timeout, UVU couldn't keep its momentum and dropped the set 25-22. Senior Kayli Doxey led the Wolverines with four kills in the set and as a team UVU matched the Cougars with 15 kills.
After the break, the Wolverines came out firing and opened up the third set with a 7-3 lead. BYU was able to get back into the set with a 7-3 run of its own to tie it up at 10. From there the set went back and forth until it was tied at 18-apiece. The Cougars then managed to finish the match as they scored seven of the final nine points to win the set 25-20.
"We saw some better things in the third set," added Atoa. "I think that we also had some opportunities in the second set, but we didn't take care of things. BYU was the better team offensively and they flowed very well, you have to give them credit."
Heaps ended the match with a team-high 11 kills while also contributing four digs. Freshman Brookelyn Campbell helped set up the Wolverine attack with 31 assists. Senior Kathleen Stevens added seven digs for the UVU defense.
The official attendance for the match was 2,206, an all-time UVU volleyball record. For those that weren't early enough to find a seat, there was limited standing room across the top of the gym.
Next week UVU will head back out on to the road for conference clashes against Texas-Pan American and Houston Baptist. The games will be played on Thursday at 6 p.m. MT and Saturday at 1 p.m. MT respectively.
