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PROVO — If No. 20 Houston was looking to upset the BYU women's volleyball team in both set of Cougars' Big 12 debut, the hosts blocked it.
Whitney McEwan-Llarenas piled up eight blocks to go along with six kills and five digs, and Erin Livingston added 12 kills and four blocks as No. 10 BYU stuffed its Big 12 opener 26-24, 25-13, 25-18 over the visiting Cougars in front of an announced crowd of 3,714 fans in the Smith Fieldhouse.
Whitney Bower dished out 21 assists, 12 digs, five blocks and four kills for the Cougars (12-1, 1-0 Big 12), and Kamaile Hiapo added 10 digs.
Abbie Jackson led Houston (7-3, 0-1 Big 12) with eight kills and five digs, and Annie Cooke had 13 assists for the Cougars who painted a corner of the Fieldhouse red in front of a midweek audience on ESPN2.
"It felt so unreal," McEwan-Llarenas said. "We weren't expecting that, but it felt so good that we could go out, keep executing, and get our hands over quick and defend behind the block. It's such a good feeling when were executing."
The visitors out-swung BYU 105-83, but hit just .029 with 31 kills and 28 attack errors. BYU converted 33 of its 83 attempts for kills with just 12 errors to finish hitting .253, bolstering 12 blocks, five aces and a 64.9% sideout with 37 digs.
"The tip-defense, the coverage, the blocking was next level," said BYU coach Heather Olmstead, who credited assistants David Hyte and Jonny Neeley for the game plan. "I'm super proud of our team. And our serve, that was probably one of the better serving matches we've had. Aria (McComber)'s run, Whitney's run, Hannah (Billeter)'s runs; all of those things give us momentum and let our block do their job."
In the conference opener for both teams, Houston came out on fire, firing seven kills on the visitors' first nine attempts with just one error en route to a 9-4 early advantage.
Hannah Billeter served five in a row to tie up the match 10-9. But Kenna Sauer's kill stopped the bleeding for Houston, but BYU tied it up again at 12-12, again moments later at 13-13 and took a lead until former Davis High outside hitter Katie Corelli — an Ole Miss transfer — tied up the set at 20-all.
The visiting Cougars took a 24-23 edge, but a service error returned the chance to BYU and Claire Little put it away to take the first set 26-24 with a 3-0 run.
After shrugging off a slow start and a 7-3 deficit in the second set, Livingston — who recorded her 1,000th career kill Wednesday night — capped an 11-0 run with defensive specialist Aria McComber serving to turn a 9-9 contest into a 19-9 advantage. That was before McEwan-Llarenas stuffed back-to-back attempts to push the lead to 21-9, and BYU held Houston to a negative-.088 hitting percentage en route to the 25-13 second-set victory.
The visiting Cougars had just seven kills with 10 errors in front of BYU, which out-blocked Houston 5-1 en route to the 2-0 lead.
"Aria's serve was keeping them guessing, and our block — I've never seen anything like it. It was one of the best defensive runs I've ever seen at BYU," Olmstead said. "There were holes in the block, too … but everybody was doing their job and in sync. It was something special that I don't think you can plan to repeat or replicate. Just be grateful it happened and that we all got to witness it. It was pretty special."
THE RALLY OF ALL RALLIES👀🤯😱
— BYU Women's Volleyball (@BYUwvolleyball) September 21, 2023
📺https://t.co/t3XWE9k4ozpic.twitter.com/Z9FrqT2RUx
The host Cougars never trailed in the decisive third set, jumping out to a 21-14 lead after Livingston capped a 4-0 spurt with the Cougars' fifth ace of the night. Houston also had five aces, but added nine service errors before BYU clinched the 25-18 third set on — what else? — a block by McEwan-Llarenas.
"I told the team in the team room, that's one of 18; welcome to the Big 12," Olmstead said. "It's going to be tough, night in and night out, at home and on the road. You've got a lot of good teams. But we only see Houston once this year, and I'm super grateful we saw them at our place. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they do in the conference. We're grateful and happy for BYU to get that first Big 12 win."
BYU returns to the Smith Fieldhouse to welcome No. 18 Baylor at 1 p.m. MDT Saturday before a three-match road trip to No. 9 Texas and Oklahoma.
