Match Stats
- No. 3 BYU 3, Princeton 1 (25-23, 25-23, 21-25, 25-18)
- BYU moves to 20-2 (13-1 MPSF); Princeton falls to 9-9 (6-3 EIVA)
- Provo, Utah
- Attendance: 2160
- Box Score
The No. 3 BYU men’s volleyball team has a big weekend ahead with a pair of matches against No. 1 Long Beach State, but first the Cougars had to fend off a feisty Princeton team Tuesday night. BYU won the match 25-23, 25-23, 21-25, 25-18 to hold home court.
Twelve members of the BYU 20-man roster saw action in the match, with nine registering at least one kill on the night. Senior outside hitter Jake Langlois and junior outside Brendan Sander pace the Cougars with 11 kills apiece, while hitting .647 and .625 respectively helping BYU to a .312 effort as a team. Langlois added a team-high four aces, while Sander chipped in a team-leading six digs. Freshman middle blocker Miki Jauhiainen paced the Cougars with five blocks.
For its part, Princeton hit at a .211 clip, outhitting the Cougars .304 to .278 in Set 1 and .375 to .269 in Set 3. Freshman outside Parker Dixon put down 13 kills to led the Tiger attack. Junior middle Junior Oboh nearly turned in a double double with nine kills and seven blocks to go with his team-best .571 hitting effort. Junior outside Kendall Ratter chipped in eight kills and four stuffs. Freshman outside Greg Luck led the team defensively with seven digs to go with his seven kills and team-best three aces.
BYU led Set 1 nearly start to finish, but Princeton did not go down easy. The Cougars boasted their largest lead at 20-15, but an 8-3 Princeton run, helped by three Cougar service errors narrowed the gap, knotting the score at 23. A kill and an error finished off the set.
Princeton continued its momentum in Set 2, jumping out to a 5-2 lead. BYU, however, turned the tables with a 12-4 run including three kills by Langlois. The Tigers weren’t done yet, though, knotting it up at 22. A timeout at 24-22 prompted an Oboh kill, but a service error cut the comeback effort short.
After falling behind 7-3, Princeton knotted the score at 12 and went on to a 15-13 lead. After three ties, last at 18, the Tigers built a four-point edge at 22-18. BYU cut the margin to two at 22-20, but a Luck kill, an ace by Dixon and a Cougar service error kept the match going with a 25-21 Princeton win.
In clinching the final stanza, BYU hit at a .500 clip, committing just one error in 22 swings. Midway through the set, the Cougars led 15-10. Princeton pulled within three at 16-13, but could not break through as BYU went up 22-16 and never looked back in a 25-23 clincher.
PRESS RELEASES
Courtesy: BYU Athletics
PROVO, Utah – Brenden Sander and Jake Langlois both had 11 kills and hit better than a .600 clip to give BYU a four-set win (25-23, 25-23, 21-25, 25-18) over Princeton Tuesday night at the Smith Fieldhouse.
“Hats off to Princeton,” BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead said. “They came in here and served tough, put pressure on us and didn’t back down. I felt like we needed to jump start our own guys and I let the team know we need to be better than that.”
Sander’s .625 clip and Langlois’ .647 clip helped the Cougars (20-2, 13-1 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) to a .312 clip as a team, compared to a .211 clip for the Tigers (9-9, 6-3 Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association).
Tim Dobbert and Joseph Grosh had six and five kills, respectively. Miki Jauhiainen led the Cougars with five blocks. Langlois had four aces, all of which came in the first set.
BYU got off to a 7-4 start in the first set, thanks in part to Langlois, who had three-straight aces. Back-to-back kills from Langlois and Sander gave the Cougars their first five-point lead at 19-14. Princeton rallied to tie the set at 22-22 and again at 23-23, but a Dobbert kill and Tiger error gave BYU the set, 25-23.
In the second set, Princeton led 5-2 before the Cougars scored three straight to even the set. BYU scored nine of the next 13 points to lead 14-9. Again, the Tigers closed the gap and squared the score at 20-20 and 22-22. Kiril Meretev’s kill and a block from Sander and Jauhiainen led to the Cougars’ 25-23 set win.
The third set was tightly contested most of the way as BYU replaced several of its starters. Princeton took its first four-point lead of any set at 22-18 before a block from Sander and a Tiger error made it a 22-20 BYU deficit. Princeton scored three out of the next four points to win the set 25-21. BYU Freshman Tanner Skabelund, who came into the match with two kills on the season, had four kills in the set.
Sander got his 11th kill of the night and had the Cougars up 15-10 at the media timeout in the fourth set. Leo Durkin’s ace extended the BYU lead to six points at 19-13. Sophomore Christian Rupert’s first career kill put BYU up 22-16. With the score at 24-18, Sander served an ace to win the set 25-18 and the match 3-1.
BYU returns to the Smith Fieldhouse for two weekend matches with No. 1 Long Beach State. The first will take place on Friday at 7 p.m. MDT. It will be televised on BYUtv with radio available on BYU Radio (Sirius XM 143).
Courtesy: Princeton Athletics
Princeton will leave this Spring Break trip with a handful of terrific experiences, many of which will strengthen a young men’s volleyball team looking to build a foundation for both present and future success.
Make no mistake, though. The Tigers didn’t step on the Smith Fieldhouse court Tuesday night for an experience. They didn’t do it for team-building or camaraderie or to simply say they faced one of the NCAA’s best teams.
No, Princeton took the court to play high-level volleyball. And it did.
The #3 BYU Cougars extended their win streak to 12 Tuesday night, but not without a major challenge thrown down by a Princeton squad that started three freshmen and hasn’t played a match in more than a week due to mid-terms. Former AVCA National Player of the Week Parker Dixon led the Tigers with 13 kills, including seven in a thrilling third-set victory, but BYU used two tight wins early to fend off the upset 3-1.
BYU entered the match having dropped only two sets since Feb. 4 — a stretch that includes back-to-back 3-0 wins over #4 Hawaii last week — and it barely avoided a third early with a pair of 25-23 wins. Princeton regrouped during the intermission, grabbed an early lead and made a strong late push for a 25-21 win. That set was dominated by Dixon, who looked like the talented outside who paced Princeton to a strong start in EIVA play.
The Cougars, who face No. 1 Long Beach State twice this weekend, finally took control midway through the fourth and finished the match with a 25-18 win.
Dixon continued to show his impressive potential against the Cougars; he led Princeton with 13 kills, hit .269 and added three digs. All-EIVA middle Junior Oboh also posted a strong effort, killing nine balls on 14 swings (.571) and added a match-high seven blocks; his defensive presence and offensive efficiency should serve as a reminder that he should be mentioned when talking about the elite middles in the NCAA. Junior Kendall Ratter (8) and freshman Greg Luck (7) combined for 15 kills, while both Ratter and freshman George Huhmann recorded four blocks apiece.
Senior setter Jonah May paced the offence with 33 assists, and he added four digs, four blocks and two kills in a well-rounded performance.
The match resembled another Princeton-BYU volleyball match from December, when both schools met in the NCAA Women’s Volleyball tournament. BYU was a Top-10 program, but Princeton pushed the Cougars hard in two tight sets before ultimately falling in three.
The Tigers will continue their Spring Break road trip Thursday and Friday at Grand Canyon, the top team receiving votes outside the latest AVCA Top 15.
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