The Utah Valley University volleyball team welcomes neighboring rival and ninth-ranked Brigham Young University to town for its 2015 home opener on Saturday night in the PE Building. First serve is scheduled for 7 p.m., and the contest will be televised locally on UVU TV and streamed live on the WAC Digital Network.
The ninth-ranked Cougars will mark the highest ranked opponent the UVU volleyball program has ever hosted in its 13 years of NCAA Division I athletics.
"We're excited to be home, but Saturday's contest won't be an easy task for us," head coach Sam Atoa said. "BYU is going to be the toughest team that we'll play all year, so we are absolutely going to have to play much better to allow ourselves an opportunity to be competitive. I honestly feel like we'll have a chance, however, as long as we take care of the areas of the game that we know that we can be really good at."
The Wolverines enter the contest with a 4-7 record on the year after opening the season on an 11-match road swing. After picking up a win over Incarnate Word at the Pepperdine Asics Classic, UVU then defeated Milwaukee at the NDSU Baymont Inn and Suites Classic in Fargo, North Dakota, before taking two out of three at the WSU Cougar Challenge in Pullman, Washington, last weekend. The Wolverines swept Ball State and Morehead State before falling to the Pac-12 Washington State Cougars in four sets.
Last time out
UVU wrapped its 11-match road stretch with a five-game setback at fellow in-state foe Utah State on Tuesday night. The Wolverines held a 2-1 advantage in the contest but couldn't put USU away, as the Aggies pulled out the final two games to take the match in five.
Despite falling to the Aggies, freshman Abby Jensen and junior Macky Fifita tallied double-doubles in the contest for the Wolverines. Jensen put up a team-high 16 kills and 11 digs, while Fifita added 11 kills of her own and 10 digs. Madison Dennison too just missed a double-double for UVU with 11 kills and a career-high nine blocks.
Fifita leads UVU in kills on the season with a 2.80 per set average, while the Preseason WAC Player of the Year Lauren Bakker paces the team in blocks and ranks third in the league with a 1.28 per set clip.
About the opposition
BYU enters the week with an 8-1 record but faces fellow in-state foe Utah in Salt Lake City on Thursday evening before coming to Orem for Saturday's contest. The nationally ranked Cougars hold wins over a pair of ranked teams in No. 7 North Carolina and No. 24 Purdue on the season and their lone setback came to No. 22 USC in Los Angeles.
BYU was the national runner-up last year after falling in the title match to Penn State and was picked to repeat in the West Coast Conference this season after winning the league title in 2014.
Reigning AVCA All-American Alexa Gray leads the Cougar offense with an average of 4.24 kills per set, while preseason all-conference selection Amy Boswell paces the team in blocks (1.43 per set).
Saturday's contest will mark the 11th Division I meeting between the Wolverines and Cougars. BYU enters play with a 10-0 series advantage after winning all six previous tries in Provo and all four in Orem.
Up next for UVU
The Wolverines return to the road to begin their 2015 Western Athletic Conference campaign at Chicago State on Thursday, Sept. 24. UVU, which was picked to finish fifth on the conference's preseason poll, then heads to Kansas City two days later to take on the defending conference champion Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos on Saturday, Sept. 26.
James Warnick is an assistant sports information director at Utah Valley University. For more information about Wolverine athletics, visit WolverineGreen.com.