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BYU Cougars: Volleyball, Soccer rolling, among Y’s top programs

By Adam Andreason

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Reeling from another shot to the face on the gridiron? Find solace that some of the BYU Cougars are in still in great shape. 

Losing a season 1-3 by a grand total of seven points isn’t exactly making for back flips and hula dancing. So bask for a moment in what is going right for some BYU Cougars right now. Sometimes you have to take joy where you can.

BYU Women’s soccer is on a roll. Even if, on the rain-soaked South Field against Denver Thursday night, the ball wasn’t.

When you’re hot, you’re hot.

Even in a downpour in 50-degree weather, and BYU Women’s soccer started to leaved scorch marks on the pitch. Coming off of a 6-game winning streak, the Cougars made it 7 with a 7-0 ransacking of the Denver Pioneers.

Particularly heartbreaking for the Pioneers (and in turn, mildly hilarious for Cougar fans) was the the final goal of the beatdown.

Down 6-0 in the final minute, Denver was just trying to pass the ball back to their keeper Brittany Wilson, maybe get a last second offensive out into the middle of the field. But instead, the back-passed ball hit a puddle just beyond the goal box, and stopped abruptly like it had been stuck in rubber cement.

The Pioneer keeper, not expecting the ball to suddenly go AWOL from its momentum, could only stare aghast as Cougar back-up forward Elise Flake sprinted up on the sitting duck (and apt expression, considering how waterlogged it was). One quick move passed the keeper and Flake buried it in the back of the net.

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This despite several cases all through the torrential second half of players dribbling hard, racing into an opponent’s defensive third, only to suddenly find the ball had not come with them.

Not many people believed that the Pioneers (3-7-1) would be able to take down the top-5 ranked Cougars on their own pitch. But less than 30 minutes into the game, that small hope was snuffed. By that time, BYU’s usual goal scorers for the year (Ashley Hatch, Michelle Vasconcelos, Nadia Gomes, and Elena Medeiros) had already fired passed Pioneer keeper Cassidy Rey for a marker each. Rey didn’t see time in the second half.

When your team is good, there is no better validation of that excellence than beating a great team on the road. They did that at Penn State, and Ohio State. But every once and awhile, it’s pretty nice to utterly destroy a mediocre team at home.

BYU (8-1-0) moves on to play the 49ers of Long Beach State tonight, also known as the Beach. If the Cougars can continue the win streak ignited by their wake-up-call loss to Nebraska, they will go into conference play against traditional WCC power Santa Clara with a high rank and a lot of momentum. They will be hard to slow down.

Day or night, rain or snow. Especially rain.

Despite losing all-timers, BYU Women’s Volleyball is somehow still really good.

When greats Alexa Gray and Ciara Parker headed off into the sunset of their college eligibility, I figured that the women’s volleyball team would take step back. A run of four straight NCAA Sweet 16 appearances or better on the backs of Gray, Parker, and dual-sport star Jennifer Hamson had to end at some point. A rebuilding year had to come.

Or not.

In come two freshman, McKenna Miller and Mary Lake. Miller already leads the Cougars in kills, hitting at a rate and percentage comparable to Hamson and Gray in their freshman seasons. She has got that outside hitter position locked down.

Lake steps right into the shoes of the Cougars’ rally ear digs leader at the libero position. Ciara Parker had been the foundation of BYU’s back line through their run at the national championship and beyond.

Mary Lake just might be even better. As a freshman.

More than merely leading the Cougars in digs, Lake routinely makes amazing saves, reaction passes, and has a pretty excellent bump set. With defensive specialist Makenna Santiago subbing in next to her, the Cougs seem to be actually passing better and more consistently on attacks and serves than last year.

And every volleyball coach will tell you, the game is all about serve and serve receive.

BYU’s sole loss on the season came in five sets to a certain team. Even that setback mostly came about due to an unfortunate combination of a superlative performance by the red team, and youthful mistakes and fumbles by the Cougars. Among their 13 victories over all, 11 of them have been sweeps.

BYU was picked to be second fiddle to San Diego in the WCC conference race before the season. With a lot of youth, it may have been a reasonable pick. But the top-15 Cougars could just as easily take a fourth straight conference crown. They’ve already started the conference season off right with two sweeps, dusting off Santa Clara and San Francisco at home. 

Not bad for a ‘rebuilding year’.

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