STANFORD -- Senior outside hitter Caroline Bower helped No. 10 BYU to a 3-0 win over California Friday at the Pac-10/Mountain West Volleyball Challenge. Bower shared a team-high 12 kills with middle blocker Nina Puikkonen and totalled a match-high 15 digs to help the Cougars to a 15-11, 15-8, 16-14 victory.
"Caroline had her best match of the year," BYU coach Elaine Michaelis said. "She had 12 kills in 20 attempts without any hitting errors and she had 15 digs. She really had a nice night and we had a very strong offensive effort overall hitting .333."
Bower approached her career high attack percentage of .615 by hitting .600 while four Cougars hit .300 or better on the night. In addition to Bower, All-American setter Anna-Lena Smith hit .400 (5-1-10), Puikkonen .304 (12-5-23) and freshman Sunny Tonga hit .385 (6-1-13, .385), all in the third game while spelling Mari Carpenter.
With the win, BYU improves to 7-1 on the year while California drops to 4-5. The Cougars will play tournament host No. 7 Stanford Saturday at 8 p.m.