2017 NCAA TOURNAMENT – PROVO POD
- December 1-2, 2017
- Round 2
- Provo, Utah
- Bracket
- Tournament Central
How they got here:
BYU and Oregon both made it to the second round by sweeping their first opponent as the Cougars took care of business with American while Oregon downed Kennesaw State. You can get caught up with anything that you missed with VolleyMob’s first round recap of the pod.
#13 BYU DEF. OREGON 3-0 (25-20, 25-21, 25-19)
- #13 BYU improves to 30-2; Oregon falls to 18-12
- Attendance: 2,935
- Box Score
#13 BYU took care of their home court and swept Pac-12 foe Oregon to reach their sixth consecutive Sweet 16. The win also pushes them to a 30-win season, which they look to add to next week in Lexington against #4 Kentucky.
The Cougars were uncharacteristically the worse blocking team (9-3 team blocks in favor of Oregon) and struggled to defend the Ducks (who hit .265), but overcame their bugaboos with a high-powered offense. Leading that high-octane attack was Veronica Jones-Perry, who was unstoppable with 27 kills while hitting .535 in just three sets of action.
Beyond actually scoring points for her side, Jones-Perry opened things up for others and had to create a mentally draining aspect for Oregon when they couldn’t stop her even when they knew it was coming. In total, BYU hit .327 for the match, which paired with their serving (four aces and three serve errors compared to 2/5 for Oregon) led to the sweep.
Things were choppy in the early going as both were looking for a big lead. BYU finally found it at 17-11 and never looked back before Jones-Perry put down the final kill of the set at 25-20. In total, there were three ties and three lead changes in the opener.
The second saw the same amount of lead changes, but almost four times the ties (11). That lasted all the way to a 17-17 tie as Taylor Agost (18 kills, .457) did her best in trying to match Jones-Perry and even surpassed the 1,000 career kill mark in the match. However, a 3-0 BYU run gave them some distance. Once again it was Lyndie Haddock (44 assists, two aces) hooking up with Jones-Perry for the final kill in the set at 25-21.
Besides Jones-Perry and Haddock, McKenna Miller (11 kills, .240) was the only other player for either side with double-digit kills while Mary Lake had a match-best 20 digs. They will look to carry their strong play to Lexington next week as they look to upend #4 Kentucky after the Wildcats survived a scare with Western Kentucky.
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