BYU volleyball: Bittersweet weekend for the Cougars

The No. 3 ranked BYU Volleyball team split two matches with the No. 1 ranked Long Beach State University team. Friday was a hard fought win, but Saturday was a less impressive loss.

If you’re BYU volleyball, you have to take the good with the bad.

Friday night brought talks of a potential No. 1 ranking, the No. 1 seed in MPSF Tournament and a signature win.

Saturday brought the opposite.

The Sweet

Whenever BYU pulls off a win against the No. 1 team in the nation, it is always a sweet experience. Just ask the basketball team who did it just a few weeks ago against the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

This week, the men’s volleyball team had their turn in beating a top-raked opponent as the Long Beach State University 49ers came to town for the weekend. Friday’s match took all five sets to determine a winner. When the dust settled, it was BYU that was victorious.

That Friday match saw some brilliant performances as Jake Langlois notched a volleyball double-double with 20 kills and 10 blocks. Brendan Sander also added a season-high on blocks with six.

The sweetness didn’t stop at taking down No.1. With this win, BYU volleyball took control of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation standings.

It didn’t last long though.

The Bitter

Saturday was a different story for BYU volleyball. Although the match was still “hard-fought,” the Cougars got swept at home by the 49ers. It happened to be on Senior night.

Aside from service errors (a BYU fan with a white board tallying 20), Long Beach State played a sound game and never let the Cougars gain any control. That being said, it wasn’t that the Cougars played poorly, the 49ers just came out firing on all cylinders proving why they are the No.1 team in the nation.

Adding to the angst is the fact that this is the first time that BYU had been swept at the Smith Fieldhouse since 2012 against Stanford when the Cougars were ranked No.1. That loss had some to do with an injury to Taylor Sander, the team’s best player and older brother to current player Brendan Sander.

This time around, BYU didn’t lose anyone to an injury but saw someone coming back from an injury.

Ben Patch has been fighting a groin injury for much of the season, but was able to play the third set against LBSU. It was too late. Hidden in the loss was a major milestone for Patch. During that third and final set, Patch notched his 1,000th career kill.

Unfortunately, the lack of attention given to this milestone proves that the weekend was more bitter than sweet.

Where does this put BYU volleyball?

After taking control of the MPSF on Friday, the Cougars needed to push the Saturday match to four or five sets in order to own the tie-breaker with LBSU. They were unable to do that so they fell back again to second place.

As far as national rankings are concerned, BYU should not expect to see themselves move from the No. 3 spot. LBSU will likely fall to No.2 giving Ohio State the new top ranking, but the Cougars will not move.

Never fear, Cougar fans! What this weekend taught us is that BYU has the goods to produce a national championship.

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With only two regular season matches remaining, the Cougars are looking forward to April 15 when the MPSF tournament begins.