The BYU Women’s Volleyball team escaped with an very edgy win over Idaho State in the home opener on Wednesday September 9th. ISU seemed to out play the lady Cougars after the first set. It is amazing that the Big Sky defending champions could run the BYU WCC (West Coast/Gonzaga-St. Mary’s) Conference champions to the wall. The BYU team seemed to lack leadership both on the court and on the bench. BYU really didn’t seem to have much of an answer to ISU after the Bengals won the second and third sets. Even though BYU was the eventual winner of the match, they surely didn’t look anything like last year’s NCAA runners up team. I am not sure if it is the new coach or a lack of killer instinct as a team overall verses the 2014-15 team. It could be a very long season for the lady Cougars.
Over all the BYU Women’s Volleyball ended up quite well with another sweet sixteen finish, about the best that could be hoped for. I do believe that the new coach finally got her team moving, but they didn’t have the experience and the jell to go further in the NCAA this season. Hopefully this first year with the new HC and a team with a little less experience than the 2014 team will improve next season. Go Lady Cougars.
Watched it recorded late last night.
My observation on the match is that BYU served and passed better than Utah, but that Utah had a clear advantage in blocking, and power behind/location of kills.
Good match overall but a little disappointed in that some of our players don’t pay good attention to positioning - for where they hit the ball and where they are at for potential blocks. Blocking was generally non-exiting for BYU for large portions of the match, and continuously just hitting the ball straight into Utah blockers were weak areas.
Nonetheless, the ladies performed well and held up under the pressure in SLC, which many BYU teams have failed to do for a long time. Hamson is quickly improving and becoming someone to contend with and that’s good to see from a freshman. Haddock is a very good setter but needs to read the D a bit better to avoid setting the ball right into the teeth of the blocks. I love her general play though.
If they can continue to improve, they may end up being the highlight of our fall sports season.
How about that win over Florida. Lost the first set which was close at the end. Won the other three (3-1) no problem and the crowd was great. Now I know why those fans were doing that look like Gator Chompers hands/arms move which I found out (from espn commenter) to be a “Shark Chompers” which still odd stuff they do.
Those Lady Cougar Players were very good. Great Matched and now Texas on ESPNU 6PM MT.
I admit, I am little annoyed at all the hyphenated last names when reading about our women’s volleyball team.
Get over it, hyphenated names are here to stay. Actually, if a sister gets married during her college or pro career in any sport, both parts of the name help people know who she is. Look at the Haddock twins, Haddock-Eppich lets us know which twin lady is which. The biggest problem I have in volleyball or basketball the announcers rarely, if ever call the player within a play who did what. Example, couldn’t an announcer in volleyball or basketball say something like, “a block by #6 Eppich,” or," a rebound by #30 Haws" It’s really pathetic in volleyball, and for that matter in baseball too.
They’re still an outlier; it’s just that you run into it more on the volleyball team. Oh, for the days when you still had Charlene Wells simply become Charlene Hawkes when she got married! 
(Charlene Wells-Hawkes?)
When my sister and I were at BYU, she went through a “liberal” period (I think a lot of girls do while in college, to be honest. She’s arch-conservative, and was a campaign worker for “W” Bush later in life. She even tried to convince us that abortion fit within LDS doctrine while at BYU, though. Like I said, I think a lot of LDS girls go a little liberal whack-a-doo while at college, including BYU, for some reason). She had a friend who took his wife’s last name legally when he got married (temple marriage). When introducing the couple to my uncle (a former stake president and mission president from Rocklin, California), he said, after, “They’re from Southern California, aren’t they?” (where they were from never came up). She was fuming mad at how “judgmental” he was about them. So, where are they from? I asked her. Oh, they’re from . . . Southern California.
You know what bugs me more than hyphenated last names on the volleyball team? Those long-john, wet suit looking things that Emery and Haws wear under their basketball uniforms! Dumb-looking. Just wear a basketball uniform and look like a basketball player!
Good season for BYU, but they are getting spanked by Stanford right now. It’s too bad because they beat Stanford early in the year, the only team to beat them this year.
I think they miss their outside hitter and it is just too much to overcome.
Oh well, that is how it goes.
I believe Nick need to wear this because of his Shoulder issue. But TJ which I have no clue why. Marty and Tyler didn’t need to.
Wow, we were leading 7-4 at 1st set and I had to get dinner ready. Several minutes later Stanford 22-13 - Yikes. Then 2nd set same old thing. Oh well, it was nice to have those first 4 matches at SFH which was nice. Hope we can do that again at home. Great season.