BYU improved in every set in its 3-1 victory over seventh-seed Concordia Wednesday afternoon, advancing to the MPSF tournament semifinals with its win over the Golden Eagles.
The No. 2 seed Cougars defeated Concordia on set scores of 20-25, 25-23, 25-18, and 25-15.
Once BYU got in its groove, the Cougars proved to be too much for their opponent, outpacing the Golden Eagles by 19 points over the final three sets.
The two schools had met twice in March, playing to a similar result with BYU besting Concordia in California on both occasions. Wednesday’s win extends the Cougars’ unbeaten streak in meetings with the Golden Eagles to nine consecutive matches.
The victory also pushes BYU to nine wins in a row this season, the school’s last defeat coming at the beginning of March against Grand Canyon.
Concordia falls to 8-19 on the year, losing its final four matches to close out the season. However, the Golden Eagles gave BYU everything it could handle for the better part of the first two sets.
After dropping the initial set, the Cougars began to take charge of the match, eking out a two-point victory in the next game before putting on dominant performances from there to close out Concordia.
“Props to our guys for staying in it and rebounding after that loss in the first set,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “Our service pressure improved in the last two sets and turned things in our favor for us to finish off those final sets quicker.”
The Cougars ended the contest with 10 service aces, eight of which came in the third and fourth sets. Four different players made their way into that part of the stat sheet. Freshman outside hitter Trent Moser gave the Provo school a match high five aces off the bench. Moser’s five aces is the most by a BYU player this season.
Junior opposite hitter Kupono Browne led the Cougars in kills, the fourth time in BYU’s last five matches that has happened, finishing the afternoon with 20 kills on a whopping .571 kill percentage. He rounded out his impressive performance with two blocks and three aces. Sophomore outside hitter Miks Ramanis added 11 kills and four blocks for the Cougars.
BYU will play again Thursday in the tournament’s semifinal round beginning at 8:05 p.m. MDT.