BYU Wins the UCLA-National Volleyball Tournament

Brigham Young University took one more step Saturday night toward acceptance as a threat to win the NCAA women’s volleyball championship by winning the top in-season tournament in the country.

Playing their second five-game match of the day against a top-five team, the Cougars got 23 kills from Sari Virtanen and 19 from Jill Sanders to win the UCLA-National Invitational volleyball tournament with a 15-12, 12-15, 15-9, 8-15, 15-10 victory over fourth-ranked Hawaii before a crowd of 1,783 at Pauley Pavilion.

BYU is 20-2. Hawaii, which was led by Suzanne Eagye’s 16 kills, is 15-2.

Hardly recognized as a traditional volleyball powerhouse, BYU went 34-10 last season in Coach Elaine Michaelis’ 24th year and had scored wins over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Pepperdine and had extended San Diego State, the top-ranked team in the CVCA coaches’ poll, to five games before losing.

In the UCLA tournament, the seventh-ranked Cougars beat Cal State Northridge, No. 1 in Division II, UC Santa Barbara and California in pool play before beating Cal State Long Beach in the quarterfinals and then upsetting No. 2 University of the Pacific to reach the finals.

This was no traditional team on the court, either--their starting lineup consisted of two players from Finland, two from Michigan, one from Salt Lake City and one from California, Torrance’s Corinne Russell. Hawaii, on the other hand, has four of its six starters from either California or Hawaii.

In beating Pacific (15-3) for third place, No. 6 UCLA won the first two games, 15-11 and 15-12, fell apart and was blown out of the next two, 5-15 and 3-15, before winning the fifth, 15-9. Wendy Fletcher (18 kills) and Jenny Crocker (15) led the Bruins, while Pacific got 15 kills from standout sophomore Elaina Oden from Irvine and Brooke Herrington from Corona del Mar.