Cougars Beaten In Their Lair By The Eaters!

Harrell on the Prowl

February 3, 2007

NO. 2 UC IRVINE TAKES OUT NO. 1 BYU IN FIVE

Provo, Utah -- No. 2 UC Irvine heanded No. 1 BYU its first loss of the season with a 3-2 (24-30, 30-23, 33-31, 29-31, 15-8) victory in Smith Fieldhouse Saturday.

The Anteaters improve to 11-2 overall and 6-2 in the MPSF, while BYU goes to 9-1 on the year and 5-1 in league play. The Cougars had only lost one game the entire season prior to the match. The win is the first in Provo for the Anteaters since Feb. 22, 1991. UCI's last six victories over the Cougars have come in five games.

Senior Jayson Jablonsky led a balanced Anteater attack with 21 kills, 10 digs and two service aces. Matt Webber pounded 14 kills and had a season-high eight blocks, while middle blocker Aaron Harrell had a season-best 13 kills and five total blocks. Middle blocker David Smith hit .562 on 10 kills, one error in 16 attempts. He rejected a match-high 10 block assists, which is his season-high. Freshman Cole Reinholm pitched in eight kills. Senior setter Brian Thornton recorded 58 set assists, while guiding the Anteaters to a .312 hitting percentage.

UC Irvine recorded a season-high 17.5 blocks to the Cougars' 14.0. BYU also committed 22 service errors for the match.

Robby Stowell led BYU with 22 kills followed by Ivan Perez with 20 kills. Yosleyder Cala added 16 kills, while Rodnei Santos had 11 kills. Russell Holmes added nine kills and a team-high eight blocks.

BYU jumped out to a 12-5 lead in game one and never looked back going on to the 30-24 victory. Game two was all UC Irvine as the Anteaters led 20-13 on their way to a 30-23 victory.

UCI used a 8-3 run in game three to take a 18-14 lead. The Cougars responded with a 10-5 run of their own to go ahead 24-23. The teams would trade points until the score was tied 31-31 and a BYU service error was followed by a UCI triple block by Matt Webber, Cole Reinholm and David Smith on Robby Stowell to end the game 33-31 for the Anteaters.

BYU never trailed in game four and led 28-25 before UCI rallied with a kill by David Smith and two by Jablonsky coupled with a BYU attack error and kill by Rodnei Santos to tie the score at 29-29. Santos put away another kill before he fired a service to end the set, 31-29 and force another game.

In the deciding fifth game, UCI led 6-5 then opened up the game with four straight points on a 7-1 spurt which included two kills by Jablonsky to take a 13-6 advantage. Aaron Harrell ended the game and the match with a kill in the middle.