After beating top-ranked UCLA in Los Angeles last Saturday, the BYU women's volleyball truly believed it could win the national championship.
So Thursday night's loss to Penn State in the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament was a bitter pill for the Cougars to swallow. Red-eyed players were trying to hold back emotions in interviews after the close, four-game heart-breaker. In the end, BYU had nothing to be ashamed of in losing to a scrappy pack of Nittany Lions after putting together the team's best season in history."It was a wonderful season," Cougar coach Elaine Michaelis said. "We had a long winning streak, which means the team came to play hard every night. We beat an awfully good UCLA team. We would have liked to be the national champions, but we feel good about ourselves."
The Cougars opened the season with a loss to nationally-ranked Hawaii on the Islands, but the next night got revenge by beating the Rainbows in three games. That win over Hawaii started BYU on a 25-match winning streak, including a perfect 14-0 WAC record for the second consecutive season.
UCLA finally broke the Cougars' winning streak during a five-game match in the Pacific Bankers Tournament, but BYU earned revenge by dowing the Bruins in three games in the NCAA West Regional finals two weeks later.
BYU finished the year with a 29-3 record and made the Final Four of the NCAA tourney for the first time ever.
"I feel really good about our season," senior outside hitter Tamua Matu'u said. "People didn't think that we would come this far this year. We played as a unit and we had heart."
Individually, the Cougars had two players chosen as first-team All-Americans in senior middle blocker Michele Fellows and junior setter Charlene Fiaputa. Matu'u finished her career as the all-time BYU leader in digs, while Carol Rawson, another senior, moved into fourth place in blocks this season. Fellows, Johnson and Matu'u all earned first-team All-WAC honors, while Rawson was picked to the All-WAC second team. Near the end of the season, a star of the future was born in freshman Gale Oborn, who was impressive in both the victory over UCLA and the loss to Penn State.
"I'm proud of our team," said Fellows.
As well she should be.