It didn’t take long for No. 10 BYU to start humming in its sweep of Concordia University Irvine Friday night in the Cougars’ return to the Smith Fieldhouse after their latest road trip.
BYU made light work of its visitors, winning on set scores of 25-17, 25-14, 25-21.
“It was important to get our guys back on the court,” BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead said after his team bounced back in a big way Friday following a pair of setbacks last weekend.
“They needed to get in that groove and build that confidence.”
The Cougars did just that in their first home match in nearly a month after playing six straight road contests following a pair of victories over Fort Valley State in Provo four weekends ago.
“That became pretty taxing on our guys to be on the road that long,” Olmstead said. “Being home … you’re in your own bed, you’re in your environment, you get to go to class, you get to have your schedule, and that’s a big deal.”
Friday, BYU made the most of its return home, keeping CUI on its toes with a balanced attack that saw three Cougars finish with eight kills and four hit .500 or better on the night.
“We wanted to (play balanced),” Olmstead said. “We found ourselves in a few of those stretches the last couple weeks where we were getting really dependent on a couple guys, and so we asked (senior setter Tyler Herget) to move the ball all over the court, and I thought he did a tremendous job, actually, and it shows kind of in the results and the numbers.”
The first set was back and forth at its beginning, with BYU holding a slight edge. The Cougars ultimately took control in the middle portion of the set though, scoring six straight points with Herget at the service line.
Herget finished with two service aces in the set and helped BYU separate itself from the Golden Eagles, and the Cougars cruised to the eight-point win while holding CUI to a -.042 hitting percentage.
“(Herget) followed our game plan to a T,” Olmstead said. “We knew that (CUI was) going to bunch in real tight blocking. That’s what they do. … A lot of times for us, we want to set our middles pretty early in the match to get the ball to those guys, and we wanted (Herget) to do the opposite (tonight).
“We wanted to try to extend (CUI) pin to pin, and so he did a great job there and pushed the ball out there, and then that opened things up to go back to the middle.”
BYU broke the match wide open in the second set, earning a double digit win to take a 2-0 lead at intermission. The Cougars never trailed in the set, hitting .786 and facing little resistance from the Golden Eagles.
BYU needed little time to earn the win and matched its largest lead when the set came to an end.
CUI gave BYU its best punch in the final set, keeping things close down to the wire. Still, the Cougars again never trailed but did not win with the ease they had in the prior two sets.
BYU ultimately hung on though to pick up the sweep. The win is right in line with the Cougars’ and Golden Eagles’ historical trends, with BYU earning its 14th consecutive victory over CUI Friday.
The Provo school last fell to the Golden Eagles seven years ago in Irvine.
BYU will look to add to that streak and win the season series with CUI Saturday evening when the two teams play again at the Smith Fieldhouse at 7 p.m.