Battered No. 3 BYU volleyball hosts top-ranked Long Beach in crucial MPSF matches


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PROVO — The BYU men’s volleyball team had decisions to make.

The Cougars were banged up. Star opposite Ben Patch was struggling to recover from a groin injury, starting libero Erik Sikes was in-and-out of the lineup after several knee surgeries and middle blocker Price Jarman was held out with a recent foot injury as BYU struggled to put together a lineup that would compete with the best in the nation early in the season — a necessity in the venerated Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

But this is a team that won’t go down easy — even if it has to go to the second, third or fourth string.

No. 3 BYU welcomes top-ranked Long Beach State to the Smith Fieldhouse for a pair of regular-season-ending games Friday and Saturday that could decide the MPSF title. Friday’s match starts at 7 p.m. MDT, while Saturday’s match has been pushed back to 8 p.m. MDT.

“It’s just a credit to the entire team, to everybody,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “All these sports right now, in March Madness, you hear it: next man up and this and that. But it’s tough to go through that. The guys have showed an unbelievable focus when things happen.”

The 49ers (21-2, 14-1 MPSF) enter the match as the top team in the nation in the AVCA coaches’ poll and a half-match ahead of BYU (20-2, 13-1 MPSF) in the MPSF standings.

Both teams have already clinched a postseason bid and will host an MPSF quarterfinal. But Friday and Saturday will go a long way toward separating the top two teams in the conference with two matches remaining for BYU.

Photo: Nicole Boliaux, Deseret News
Photo: Nicole Boliaux, Deseret News

The Cougars entered the season with lofty expectations. Fresh off a runner-up finish in the national tournament, the young squad returned the majority of its starting roster from last year’s team that ran into a wall against Ohio State in a championship match sweep.

The returning veterans included Patch and Brenden Sander, both first-team All-Americans, and Jake Langlois, a second-team All-American nominee. But one by one, injuries mounted. It seemed like a different player was in and out of the lineup every week.

Olmstead didn’t make excuses, but he was clearly frustrated. In a rare move, the usually accessible and honest coach declared he didn’t want to discuss injuries and recovery times.

No one could blame him; BYU was hit hard, but the Cougars still had a season to play.

Then something happened. BYU’s reserves started winning, to the tune of its current 14-match winning streak.

“When someone gets hurt, we just put another one in and we are going to do well,” Langlois said after sweeping No. 4 Hawaii last week.

Patch still leads the team with 4.83 kills per set. But Langlois is averaging 3.95 kills over 65 sets, nearly twice the playing time as Patch. In the absence of Jarman, Joseph Grosh has averaged 0.93 blocks per set, the second-most on the team. Add in Sander's 2.98 kills over 56 sets and Tim Dobbert’s 2.02 over 61, and the Cougars have stepped up to the challenge.

“Our work ethic in practice is big,” Langlois said. “I feel like we get more work done through the week than any other team. We play more, we practice more, and the guys who play more on the court are just as good as off the court.”

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