Jan. 17, 2003
STANFORD, Calif. - Fifth-ranked Brigham Young University outlasted 12th-ranked Stanford University 33-31, 23-30, 30-26, 29-31, 15-11 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's volleyball opener for both teams on Friday night at Burnham Pavilion. The Cougars improved to 1-0 on the year, while the Cardinal fell to 2-3.
The two teams will play again on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. at Burnham Pavilion.
The Cougars broke a 4-4 tie in the fifth game by reeling off four consecutive points with Luka Slabe at the service line. The Cardinal, however, came back to cut the deficit to one at both 9-8 and 10-9. BYU came back with three unanswered points to take a commanding 13-9 lead. The Cougars' Jonathan Alleman had two of his match-high 30 kills in the decisive run.
"The good news is that we battled back and played well enough to win tonight," Stanford head coach Don Shaw said. "We just a made couple of errors at critical times."
Senior Curt Toppel (Pacific Palisades, CA) had a team-high 22 kills, four digs, two service aces and two blocks to pace the Cardinal. Seniors William Curtis (Whittier, CA) and William Strickland (Malibu, CA) added 12 kills apiece, while redshirt sophomore Kevin Hansen (Newport Beach, CA) pitched in 58 assists and eight digs.
The Cougars hit .424 (80 k-21 e-139 ta) in the match, including .450 in game five (11-2-20), compared to .424 for the Cardinal (70-23-142). Alleman hit .458 (30-8-48) to lead the winners, while Rafael Paal added 20 kills, 15 digs and four service aces.
After BYU scored three unanswered points to close out game one, Stanford pulled away from BYU at the end of game two. The Cardinal scored 10 of the final 13 points in the second game, and hit .344 (17-6-32) to the Cougars' .160 (10-6-25).
In game three, the score was tied at 18-18 before the Cougars went on a 6-2 run to take a commanding 24-20 advantage they would not relinquish. Stanford then tied the match in game four, as with the score tied at 29-29, BYU committed a service error and hitting error to end the game.