BYU Women’s Volleyball Extends Win Streak Over Utah
Sep 19, 2019, 9:15 PM | Updated: 9:35 pm
Photo: Courtesy of BYU Photo/Jaren Wilkey
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The No. 12 ranked BYU women’s volleyball team continued their dominance over the Utah Utes on Thursday night. BYU (8-2) defeated the No. 18 Utes (8-3) in four sets (25-22, 25-21, 12-25, 25-18).
BYU’s win in the rivalry is the Cougars ninth in the last 10 meetings with the Utes.
Some victories are sweeter than others 🙌#BYUWVB #GoCougs pic.twitter.com/GehZnCT5t3
— BYU Women’s Volleyball (@BYUwvolleyball) September 20, 2019
Outside hitter McKenna Miller led the way for BYU registering 22 kills on a .413 hitting percentage. The 22 kills on Thursday night is Miller’s most kills in a match since September 2017 and is the highest total in her career that ended in less than five sets.
“I’m really proud of the way the team battled tonight,” BYU head coach Heather Olmstead said. “They kept their focus the entire match, even when things weren’t going our way. McKenna played incredible tonight and she had that look in her eyes that all she wanted was to win. Mary also brought it tonight and had some crucial passes and digs. Everybody contributed and we’ll use this to continue building.”
Utah started the match strong scoring the first three points in set one, but BYU then quickly tied up the set at three points apiece.
Final: BYU 3, Utah 1
We're back in the Huntsman Center this Wednesday to begin Pac-12 play against Colorado!
— Utah Volleyball (@UtahVolleyball) September 20, 2019
“It was a battle, and I think any team could have won tonight,” Utah head coach Beth Launiere said. “McKenna Miller was taking some really aggressive swings and getting kills at the end of long rally’s and that hurt us. We fought, we battled and I was really proud of our effort. We just talked about how we need to keep working and just have that mental composure from start to finish. I thought there were a lot of good things, and It’s not the end, it’s actually the beginning.”
In the fourth and final set, BYU started to take control by jumping out to a 6-1 lead. Utah fought back to cut the deficit to one to put the score at 8-7, but the Utes had two costly attack errors that allowed BYU to build up their lead again.
Coming Up Next
Next up for No. 12 BYU is a road match at No. 2 Stanford on Saturday, September 21st at 2 p.m. (MT). The game will be televised on Pac-12 Networks.
Next up for No. 18 Utah is the first Pac-12 match of the season against Colorado on Wednesday, September 25th at 7 p.m. (MT) at the Jon M. Huntsman Center. Match will be televised on Pac-12 Networks.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.
