Tonga's Offense, Strong Serving Lead No. 10 Cougars Past Wyoming

PROVO -- Led by strong serving and the offensive production of freshman Sunny Tonga, the 10th-ranked BYU women's volleyball team defeated Wyoming 15-2, 15-5, 15-2 in the Smith Fieldhouse to improve to 23-3 overall and 12-1 in the Mountain West Conference.

The Cougars had six aces on the night with only eight serving errors. The tough serving kept the Cowgirls off balance and hurt their passing. BYU coach Elaine Michaelis was pleased with her team's serving and said it was something the Cougars had been looking to improve.

"We'll take six aces with eight errors any night," Michaelis said. "I was telling someone earlier that there are matches where we'll have eight errors the whole match and there are other nights when we'll have eight errors in every game. We've been working on that part of our game and I thought we did pretty well."

Tonga also played pretty well. She finished the night hitting .769 with 10 kills on only 13 attempts. Tonga enjoyed success against the Cowgirls in both matches this year. At Wyoming, Tonga set a school record for hitting percentage in a match by hitting .909 (10 of 11). She hit .833 in her two matches against Wyoming, who fell to 9-19 overall and 3-10 in the Mountain West Conference.

The Cougars had a balanced attack all around with the team hitting .341 while the BYU defense was also strong holding Wyoming to -.051 hitting percentage. The only Cowgirl to hit a positive percentage was middle blocker Melody Friehauf, who had an impressive night. She ended the match with a .400 hitting percentage and six kills.

Cougar sophomore Jackie Bundy led both teams and tied a career high with 11 kills. BYU sophomore Nina Puikkonen, who is fourth in the nation in blocking this season, finished the night with 10 blocks.

BYU will hope to carry the momentum of this match into Saturday's match-up with No. 11 Colorado State. The Cougars will look to win the regular season conference title and receive the No. 1 seed in next week's Mountain West Conference Tournament held at the Smith Fieldhouse in Provo. The Rams handed BYU its only conference loss of the season when they beat BYU 15-8, 15-13, 15-6 on Oct. 22.

The Colorado State match is Saturday at 5 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse. The Mountain West Conference Tournament runs Nov. 24 through Nov. 27 in the Smith Fieldhouse as well.

Volleyball Box Score

WYOMING Cowgirls vs Brigham Young (Nov 19, 1999 at BYU PROVO

UTAH)

WYOMING Cowgirls | ATTACK |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|

BLOCK |GEN

## Name GP| K E TA PCT| A| SA SE| RE|DIG|BS BA

BE|BHE

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 SCAVUZZO, Molly..... 3| 1 4 10 -.300| 2| 0 0| 0| 1| 0 2

0| 0

2 FRIEHAUF, Melody.... 3| 6 2 10 .400| 0| 0 0| 0| 1| 1 2

0| 0

3 WHALEN, Angel....... 3| 0 1 1-1.000| 1| 0 1| 1| 3| 0 0

0| 0

5 BURKE, Jamie........ 3| 7 7 21 .000| 1| 0 2| 3| 6| 1 0

0| 0

9 KELLER, Michele..... 3| 4 4 16 .000| 0| 0 0| 1| 3| 0 0

0| 0

10 PERRYMAN, Colette... 3| 0 0 0 .000| 0| 0 1| 1| 1| 0 0

0| 0

11 LOWRY, Brooke....... 3| 0 2 4 -.500| 14| 0 4| 0| 6| 0 1

0| 2

16 LAU, Rachel......... 3| 1 3 17 -.118| 0| 0 0| 0| 1| 0 1

0| 0

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Totals.............. 3| 19 23 79 -.051| 18| 0 8| 6| 22| 2 6

0| 2

TEAM ATTACK PER GAME TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS:

5.0

Game K E TA Pct

1 3 7 16 -.250 GAME SCORES 1 2 3 TEAM RECORDS

2 11 8 33 .091 WYOMING Cowgirls.... 2 5 2 9-19 3-10

3 5 8 30 -.100 Brigham Young....... 15 15 15 23-3 12-1

Brigham Young | ATTACK |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF|

BLOCK |GEN

## Name GP| K E TA PCT| A| SA SE| RE|DIG|BS BA

BE|BHE

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2 WHITTAKER, Natalie.. 2| 0 1 1-1.000| 0| 2 1| 0| 1| 0 0

0| 0

3 SMITH, Anna-Lena.... 3| 2 0 7 .286| 33| 0 0| 0| 3| 0 2

0| 0

5 RHEAD, Amy.......... 1| 0 0 1 .000| 0| 0 0| 0| 4| 0 0

0| 0

6 KENNEDY, Emily...... 1| 0 0 0 .000| 2| 0 2| 0| 4| 0 0

0| 0

8 BOWER, Caroline..... 3| 4 2 14 .143| 0| 2 2| 0| 7| 0 4

0| 0

9 PUIKKONEN, Nina..... 3| 6 4 13 .154| 0| 0 0| 0| 1| 2 8

0| 0

10 BUNDY, Jackie....... 3| 11 3 16 .500| 0| 0 1| 0| 4| 0 2

0| 0

11 BARRUS, Alyssa...... 1| 1 2 5 -.200| 0| 0 0| 0| 0| 0 0

0| 0

12 LAYTON, Melissa..... 2| 4 1 7 .429| 0| 2 2| 0| 4| 0 0

0| 0

14 CARPENTER, Mari..... 1| 4 1 5 .600| 0| 0 0| 0| 0| 0 1

0| 0

15 TONGA, Sunny........ 3| 10 0 13 .769| 0| 0 0| 0| 0| 0 3

0| 0

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Totals.............. 3| 42 14 82 .341| 35| 6 8| 0| 28| 2 20

0| 0

TEAM ATTACK PER GAME TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS:

12.0

Game K E TA Pct

1 12 4 17 .471 Site: BYU PROVO UTAH (SMITHFIELD HOUSE)

2 14 3 29 .379 Date: Nov 19, 1999 Attend: 691 Time: 1H 5M

3 16 7 36 .250 Referees: ERIC ASAMI, BRUCE GRANT, KAREN

MARSHALL