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PROVO — The BYU women’s volleyball team could’ve given up several times down the stretch of the regular season.
The 10th-ranked Cougars ended the regular season with three-straight road trips, a daunting task made even more daunting in a West Coast Conference where every team hunts BYU and the Cougars were chasing league-leader San Diego for a third-straight conference title.
In every match, they lost a set, and went down two sets to none in the regular-season finale at Loyola-Marymount. But the Cougars rallied, and when Amy Boswell’s final kill hit the hardwood on a 16-25, 16-25, 25-20, 25-22, 15-13 win over the Lions, each player looked to the sideline.
An associate commissioner of the conference was bringing a banner: West Coast Conference champions. The Cougars had done it; they clinched an automatic bid to their fifth-straight NCAA Tournament.
“The kids never gave up, even with one, two or three matches to go,” said BYU coach Heather Olmstead, who played 13 players in the final rotation against the Lions. “Our kids just put their heads down, grinded away, and ended up winning the conference outright. I think it’s a tribute to how hard they worked, how humble they worked and how much they love each other.”
In large part because of that win and back-to-back-to-back conference championships, the Cougars will host the first and second round of the NCAA Tournament beginning with Ivy League champion Princeton at 7 p.m. MST Friday.
BYU is 3-0 all-time against the Tigers (19-4), including a win in the 1999 NCAA Tournament. A win Friday could set up a possible postseason rivalry match against the winner of Utah’s match with UNLV (23-7) at 5 p.m. MST in Provo.
The winner of BYU's sub-regional will advance to the regional semifinals Dec. 9 in Austin, Texas. The Cougars have advanced to at least the regional semifinals each of the past four seasons.
Olmstead insists the Cougars (27-3) aren’t focused on a possible rematch with the No. 22 Utes (20-11), who defeated BYU on its home floor 3-2 on Sept. 15. In case that may be true, the Cougars have been grinding from match to match for three weeks.
“The strength of our team is our team, and everybody is ready to go at any time,” Olmstead said. “We weren’t playing our best, but it turned a little for us. We started playing BYU volleyball, our seniors were there playing steady, and the younger kids were playing steady at the end of the match. It was nice having that depth as the strength of our team.”
The Cougars have gotten a big boost from a stunning freshman class, including WCC freshman of the year McKenna Miller, who ranked third in the conference with 3.73 kills per set, and libero Mary Lake, who led the league with 4.53 digs per set.
But it’s hard to underestimate experience, and BYU got it in a big way with All-WCC first-team selections Amy Boswell and Whitney Young Howard, who averaged 1.24 and 1.19 blocks per set, respectively.
“I think as we get further, it helps,” Boswell said when asked about her tourney experience. “These first couple of games are pretty much the same as other games, though. Going to the national championship was definitely a whole new level of media and meetings, and for those of us who have been that far, that’s going to be really important to us to let the younger girls know what to expect. It’s a lot to take in that first time.”
Playing at home in front of a packed Smith Fieldhouse and what Boswell calls an “unreal” fan base will also help, both the freshmen who have never been to a postseason tournament and the seniors who are playing their final games in the building.
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Utes, Cougars to open NCAA women’s volleyball tournament in Provo
Rivals once, rivals forever. The BYU and Utah women’s volleyball teams will open the 2016 NCAA Tournament on Friday against other teams in the Smith Fieldhouse in Provo, the selection committee announced Sunday evening.“I think it’s a neat experience for our seniors that have been here and helped continue the tradition of going to the NCAA Tournament to lead this team into the weekend,” Olmstead said. “They’ll show them the ropes, and we’ve told them we’ve got the blueprint and we will stick to what has been done in years past and work.”
The Tigers are led by two-time Ivy League player of the year Cara Mattaliano and freshman of the year Maggie O’Connell. The Cougars beat Princeton in 2012, but await a similar squad produced by Ivy League coach of the year Sabrina King on Friday.
Mattaliano averaged 3.76 kills per set to lead Princeton, and O’Connell added 3.08 kills per set from the other side for a 1-2 punch from the Tigers’ pin-hitters.
“They’re physical,” Olmstead said. “Offensively, I think we match up well with them. Defensively, I think we can do some things well. But they are a good passing and good serving team, so they’ll be good.”
The Cougars needed to rally to clinch a conference title, and the rally paid off with two home matches.
Now they are looking to make the most of it.
“It’s definitely a boost,” Boswell said. “I’m so excited that we can have two more games in the Fieldhouse, especially knowing they would really be my last two.”
