Volleyball falls in straight sets at #16 BYU-Hawaii

September 10, 2012

Ixchelle Oleson tallied a team-best 11 kills on Friday night.

Sixteenth-ranked Brigham Young-Hawaii used a strong second and third set and hit over .400 for the match en route to a 3-0 volleyball win against Alaska on Friday night at Cannon Activities Center.

The Seasiders improved to 4-2 after winning the match by scores of 25-20, 25-13 and 25-16, while the Nanooks fell for the third straight match to drop to 2-3.

They are an outstanding team and have really good players in every position," head coach Phil Shoemaker said. "We played really hard but we got outplayed completely. It's one of those things where they were the better team and I felt we played hard, we tried to do the right things, although they broke us down because of how good they are."

BYU-H was led by Shih Ting Chen, who produced a match-high 13 kills and hit .500 (13-1-24) on the night. Lauren Hagemeyer also helped out with eight kills and five blocks, whileYing Chun Chen had 40 assists and Courtney Skaggs made seven blocks, two solo.

The Seasiders hit .412 (44-9-85) after making just nine errors, while Alaska struggled offensively, hitting just .123 (35-22-106) after having 22 errors. BYU-H outblocked Alaska 11-2 and had a 41-28 advantage in digs.

The Nanooks were paced by freshman outside hitter/opposite Ixchelle Oleson, who had a team-best 11 terminations. Freshman outside hitter Sam Harthun and senior outside hitter Reilly Stevens combined for 17 kills, with nine and eight, respectively. Freshman setter Katlyn Mataya created the bulk of scoring opportunities with 32 dimes and senior libero Allison Oddy tallied a match-high 12 digs.

"We had the opportunity to really learn from this match and to grow," Shoemaker said. "It was a good experience in the sense of gaining experience against an extremely high-level team. BYU is a bit of a steam roller."

The first set remained tight for some time, but with the frame tied at 15, the hosts scored three straight to take an 18-15 lead. The Nanooks could never get closer than two as the Seasiders took the opening set 25-20.

BYU-Hawaii took the lead early in the second and opened up a nice advantage by scoring five of seven to grab an 18-12 lead. Alaska scored the following point to trim the deficit to five, but the Seasiders responded with the next seven points, five coming by way of Alaska errors to claim a 25-13 set victory.

The home team held a minimal lead at 9-8 in the third, but five of the next six went BYU-H's way to give it a 14-9 advantage. Alaska got to within four on two separate occasions, but the Seasiders used a 7-0 run to double up on Alaska at 22-11. They clinched the match by taking the set 25-16.

The 'Nooks wrap up their tropical three-pack of matches Saturday night at 7 p.m. AKDT when they take on Hawaii Pacific, which is receiving votes in the latest AVCA Coaches poll.