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Colorado State Swamps Confused BYU to Win Mountain West Volleyball Title
By Michael C. Lewis, Salt Lake Tribune
Nov. 28, 1999
PROVO -- The Brigham Young Cougars certainly picked the wrong time to fall apart. Playing the Colorado State Rams in the championship match of the inaugural Mountain West Conference women's volleyball tournament at Smith Fieldhouse on Saturday, the Cougars seemed to suddenly forget how they won 12 straight matches and 27 in a row at home. They couldn't serve. They couldn't receive. Passing was an adventure. Nothing at all worked the way the Cougars wanted it. Least of all, the score. Armed with confidence from a comeback victory over Utah in the semifinals, the Rams pounded their way to a 15-8, 15-8, 15-12 victory that gave them not only the title, but a second victory in three tries over the Cougars this season. The victory might also win CSU the right to play host to a first-round match in the NCAA Tournament -- or doom the Cougars to a road match -- when the pairings are announced tonight. "For us to do this, it says a lot about our team," said CSU Coach Tom Hilbert. "They're warriors." The Cougars (26-4) were simply confused. None could explain how they wound up on the wrong side of a sweep for the fourth time this season, and Coach Elaine Michaelis seemed disgusted that "we did not execute our game plan at all." "We did not even have a chance to run our offense," she added. The Cougs were on their heels the whole match, falling behind 5-0 to start the first game and allowing nine answered points after leading 8-6 in the second. They allowed nine straight points in the third game, too, but did fight off match point four times before CSU's Angela Knopf slammed down the carom of a Cougar dig for the title winner. "At the very end, it was awesome for our team to show the fighting spirit that we did, but overall, we weren't in sync," said BYU's Caroline Bower. "We weren't connecting like we usually do." The Rams (28-2), meantime, connected on everything -- including Hilbert, with a celebratory bucket of ice water after the game. "It was worth it," he said. Catie Vagneur had 19 kills to lead CSU and win the tournament MVP award, while teammates Knopf, Courtney Cox, Summer Jennings, Allison Peckham and Kristen Vance joined her on the all-tournament team. Nina Puikkonen was the only Cougar to make the all-tournament team, and Utah's McKelle Stilson also was honored after leading the Utes into the semifinals. Hilbert praised his team for perfectly executing a game plan that included doing a better job defending Bower than the Rams did in their loss to BYU in the regular-season finale last weekend. The coach also wanted his team to keep the Cougs from ever scoring two points in a row -- it happened only once -- and to keep them scoreless during their jump-serve rotation. "They did it to a 'T,' " said Hilbert. Bower led the Cougars with 15 kills, but she also had eight errors, while Puikkonen and Mari Carpenter each added 11 kills. The Cougs also hit only .177, and were outdug, outblocked and outserved. The Rams said that might have been because the Cougars had such an easy time reaching the finals. BYU swept two bad teams, while the Rams endured that five-game thriller against Utah in the semis. "I felt that everything had seemed too easy for them," said Vagneur. "I got the feeling they weren't going to come out and respect us as much. . . . We were one step ahead of them and we were getting to them. We could feel it." All the same, the Cougars dismissed suggestions that their performance should be cause for concern going into the NCAA Tournament this week. Michaelis insisted the loss was simply the product of the Cougars having a bad day while the Rams had a good one, and said she doubted it will have much effect on the tournament pairings. "Maybe they will get to go to Penn State instead of us," she said, hopefully. The Nittany Lions have ended the Cougars' season the past two years, and three times in the last six. The Cougars, with dreams of reaching the Final Four, hope it doesn't happen again.
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