BYU needed a reset after falling to No. 18 Stanford in the middle of March two nights in a row at the end of a long string of road matches. The Cougars had only won two matches over a four-week span that saw them travel to Hawaii once and California twice. In that span, the school had four setbacks, including its first MPSF defeats, both coming at the hands of the Cardinal.
BYU coach Shawn Olmstead knew he had to do something a bit different and try to help his team out of a funk.
“We came back from that Stanford road trip and shut things down for two days,” the 11th-year Cougar head coach said. “I’ve never done that in my career. … I thought they responded really well. (We had) two really, really good practices.”
“It’s going to always come down to the end of the season at the MPSF tournament. But … you don’t want to just sit back and let these games go by. These are big, we need to play good volleyball. … We got to play tough volleyball matches and we got to play against tough opponents. And so these are big time.”
— BYU volleyball coach Shawn Olmstead
The break, combined with the practices, resulted in a pair of bounceback matches for BYU. In their return home, the Cougars picked up a pair of sweeps over Concordia University Irvine and improved their league record to 6-2 on the year at that point.
“You’re a little nervous when you do that,” Olmstead said of giving his team a two-day break. “I think we saw a little of the product. We were good at the things we wanted to work on.”
BYU had little trouble with CUI, as the Cougars got back on the right side of the MPSF contests.
“Those can be tough,” Olmstead said of winning league matches after BYU beat the Golden Eagles. “I challenged (the team). … They were excited to come back Wednesday, and to respond that way was big time.”
The wins added to the Cougars’ league tally, keeping them in the top half of the MPFS standings. The school’s first league wins of the season came in February with a pair of victories over Menlo in Provo. BYU followed those wins with two road triumphs, one against UC Merced and one against Jessup.
Then Stanford got the best of the Provo school, extending its win streak over BYU to three after it eliminated the Cougars from the MPSF tournament a season ago to bring an abrupt end to their season.
Despite BYU’s success against CUI, its struggles against the upper half of the league returned last weekend in a pair of home losses to No. 6 Pepperdine. Little things created big problems for the Cougars as Olmstead’s frustration came to a head after falling to the Waves.
“What we think is a little (mistake), those are big things,” Olmstead said. “At our level, when you help teams out and make the errors on our side, it (has a big impact). There’s no little things.”
With the most important month of the Cougars’ season upon them, they will have to focus on the details and clean up their mistakes quickly with the school looking to peak as it heads into tournament play.
“It’s going to always come down to the end of the season at the MPSF tournament,” Olmstead said after losing to Pepperdine last week. “But … you don’t want to just sit back and let these games go by. These are big, we need to play good volleyball. … We got to play tough volleyball matches and we got to play against tough opponents. And so these are big time.”
Before the conference tournament starts, the Cougars have six contests remaining on their schedule, all six against MPSF squads. BYU, which currently is positioned in fifth place in the league, will face some of the MPSF’s top teams over that span. The Cougars will face No. 4 USC twice in their final regular-season home contests before concluding the schedule in a pair of road matches at currently unbeaten No. 1 UCLA.
But before BYU gets to the Trojans and the Bruins, its slate will continue this week with contests Thursday and Friday on the road against Vanguard. Both matches will begin at 8 p.m.
