PROVO — For a few moments, it was as if Las Vegas native Leo Durkin was back in high school, playing club volleyball with opposite hitter Ben Patch, who grew up in Provo.

The duo played club volleyball together as teenagers, and found a special connection as they ran the summer circuits.

After Patch's two-year LDS Church mission and in Durkin's first start at BYU, they picked up where they left off in the 2016 opener of the top-ranked BYU men's volleyball team.

Patch had a match-high 21 kills with just three errors, and Durkin dished out 44 assists as No. 1 BYU defeated No. 3 Loyola-Chicago 25-19, 23-25, 25-19, 25-19 in front of 5,637 fans Friday on the opening night of the AVCA Showcase at the Smith Fieldhouse.

"We played a lot of ball together," Durkin said. "He's a big guy, easy to set, and I just have to get it high. You can't ask for much more from a hitter."

Brenden Sander added 12 kills on 25 swings for BYU, including smashing the match-winner from the back row off a seamless feed from Durkin, who also finished with four digs and three blocks for BYU (1-0). Jake Langlois added eight kills, 10 digs and three blocks for the Cougars, who did most of their damage while hitting .300 or greater in three of the four sets.

Of course, playing in front of some of the largest crowds in men's collegiate volleyball helps, too.

"BYU's a great environment, and it's nice when you have 5,000 people rooting for you," Durkin said. "You couldn't do anything wrong. It's a great group of guys, so for me it was easy to get out and do what I've been doing this whole preseason."

BYU (1-0) jumped out to a 9-6 lead early in the first set on a monstrous block by Price Jarman before Patch put down back-to-back kills to take a 12-9 lead.

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Every now and then, new BYU men's volleyball coach Shawn Olmstead has to remind himself to coach. It's not that he isn't doing his job since moving his office down the hall following the women's volleyball team's trip to the national championship match. But a year after BYU went 17-10, including an average 14-8 record in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, his new players know what they need to do get back to the top of the college volleyball world.

From there, the Cougars maintained a strong lead, going up by as many as five points on Michael Hatch's kill at 22-17 before outscoring the Ramblers 3-2 down the stretch and taking the first set on Hatch's service ace.

New men's volleyball coach Shawn Olmsted couldn't have scripted a much better start for BYU, which hit .667 out of the gate and had just one attack error in the first set.

"The atmosphere, the environment, was unreal," Olmstead said. "That's what we expect at BYU, and it's what this men's program has become here. What a fun match to be a part of. So many people did a wonderful job: Leo was outstanding. He got the right hitters the ball at the right times. We lost a little in the second set, but he got right back on the bandwagon. And Ben was great; his numbers were through the roof."

But serving got away from the Cougars in the second set, which no team led by more than a point until Loyola took a 24-23 lead on Trevor Novotny's ace. BYU hit 10 service errors to just two aces in the first two couplets and hit just .121 in the second set to see Loyola-Chicago even the season opener on Ricky Gevis' seventh kill of the match, 25-23.

"Sometimes you let things get away from you, and we let them get some control over the match," Durkin said. "It's as simple as controlling the pace, being patient, and taking care of the ball when it's on your side. We let that get away from us. We've got to take care of the ball more in service."

Other than the mis-hitting in set two, the Cougars started the season looking like the No. 1-ranked team in the nation in the preseason AVCA coaches' poll.

Through it, though, Olmstead told his team to gut it out.

"I told them to not miss their serves, and that didn't work," Olmstead joked. "But tactically, I thought we were doing the rights things, in the right spots, and making the right reads. So I just told the guys to stay the course. The difference between winning and losing that set was so small that I knew they just had to stay at it.

"It wasn't the end of the world, and they did it. That's great."

BYU hit .316 and .379 in the final two sets to secure the win, while the Ramblers (0-2) hit .160 in each of the final two couplets to take their second loss of the season after winning the past two national championships.

Loyola took the early advantage in the third set, but BYU scored three-straight points to take a 6-5 lead on Langlois' ace for its first lead of the set. The Cougars then used a 5-0 run to take an 18-12 advantage, paced by Jarman's block and three Rambler errors during the run before finishing off the third set on Jarman's finish from a perfect set by Durkin.

Patch capped a 4-1 spurt with a smashing kill to give BYU a 13-9 lead early in the fourth set. But Loyola rambled back and tied the match at 16-16 on Novotny's kill from the outside.

Patch took the lead right back on a kill that he squeezed just inside the pole, and Sander soared high to smash a kill from the back row for an 18-16 lead that sent the Smith Fieldhouse crowd into a frenzy.

"This was such a humbling experience, to be back," Patch said. "It's overwhelming and daunting at first, with how much love you feel from BYU fans. It felt really good to be welcomed back and received so well. It was a really great experience tonight.

"It was so loud in here, and for me to get set, I've got to be really loud. I had to double the octave and pitch tonight just for my setter to hear what I'm calling."

Gevis led the Ramblers (0-2) with 15 kills, but hit just .146 with nine attack errors on a night when Loyola-Chicago averaged a .196 hitting percentage. The Ramblers had 22 service errors with just seven aces, though both teams struggled from the service line as BYU had only five aces. Peter Hutz dished out 38 assists for Loyola-Chicago, and Nicholas Olson put down nine kills and five blocks for the Ramblers, who will face No. 2 UC Irvine at 4:30 p.m. MST Saturday.

BYU returns to the Fieldhouse to face No. 14 George Mason at 7 p.m. MST Saturday. The match will be streamed live on TheW.tv.

"It was a great volleyball match," Olmstead said. "(Loyola) has a lot of experience, and they are a big, physical team. Of course when you win, you are happy with the outcome. But in general, the guys just did a great job, got better, and made a lot of progress."

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