No. 19 Georgia Tech overpowers block, handing No. 14 BYU women's volleyball first loss

PROVO — The top 25 women's volleyball match between No. 14 BYU and No. 19 Georgia Tech had just about everything the announced crowd of 4,542 fans could have wanted Saturday night in the Smith Fieldhouse.

Except, perhaps, for a home-team win for the partial home crowd.

Tamara Otene poured in 24 kills and 13 digs, and Larissa Mendes added 21 kills as the Yellow Jackets held off BYU in five sets 21-25, 25-20, 19-25, 25-20, 15-13.

Biance Bertolino added 10 kills and 13 digs for the Yellow Jackets (4-1), which placed all three players on the all-tournament team of the BYU Nike Invitational that also included Lipscomb. Luanna Emiliano had 40 assists and nine digs for Georgia Tech.

Claire Little led BYU with a career-high 20 kills and nine digs, Kjersti Strong added seven kills and five blocks and Alex Bower supplied 36 assists and 12 digs for the Cougars (4-1) in their first five-set match of the season, all while starting four freshmen (Bower, Ellie Mortensen, Blayki Bobik and libero Lulu Uluave) and two sophomores (Little and Brielle Kemavor)

"We talked about not making excuses; we can be young, and we can be good," BYU coach Heather Olmstead said. "The strength of our team is our team, and we'll need everybody to be ready to go. It's a long season, and we want to take it one game at a time — and we want to play our best, and use all of the puzzles pieces to our best. I thought Elyse (Stowell) came in and did a good job, Alyssa (Erickson) came in and did a good job, and Brielle; we need everybody on the team.

"We want to take every opportunity to learn, and we for sure learned from that match. It will only make us better."

In that decisive fifth set, BYU jumped out to a 6-3 edge on Little's put-back kill to open the fifth set. But Georgia Tech used a 5-0 run and back-to-back service errors to take a 9-7 edge.

Otene laid down three consecutive kills to gift the Yellow Jackets a 14-11 advantage. Little plowed an ace just short of the back line to cut the Cougars' deficit to 14-13, but Otene ended the match with her 24th kill — on her 54th swing — to give Georgia Tech its first top-25 win of the season.

BYU posted six blocks in the first set, including four from Blaykli Bobik, as the Cougars held the Yellow Jackets to .051 hitting in the first set en route to a 25-21 win and 1-0 advantage.

Georgia Tech found its groove in the second set, using an early advantage and hitting .357 with 18 kills on 42 swings for a 25-20 win.

Mendes had six kills in the second set for the Yellow Jackets, who committed just three hitting errors and kept the Cougars without a block.

"I thought we got in good spots early, and did a good job of playing to the scout," Olmstead said. "Then I thought Georgia Tech started hitting good shots, and we couldn't get in good enough spots blocking. Our block slowed down a bit; I thought BK and Kjersi did a good job, but they attacked our pin block and we've got to get better on our pins."

Bower served her first ace of the match to cap a 4-0 run and put BYU ahead, 13-7 in the third set. That helped stake a lead the Cougars would never relinquish, as Little poured down seven kills to end the 25-19 third set on a 6-1 run.

Georgia Tech jumped out to an 8-3 lead in the fourth set, but BYU rallied to take an 11-10 edge on Kemavor's kill. Kemavor added a block to tie at 16-all, but the Yellow Jackets used a 4-0 run to wrestle back control before going up 23-18 on Liv Mogridge's ace.

Georgia Tech hit .312 in the fourth set, including seven kills from Otene and six from Mendes to set up the decisive fifth set.

"Georgia Tech is a great team; they were so scrappy," Olmstead said. "We couldn't get kills; they got 20 more kills than us. Their defense and block cover was unreal. We couldn't find the court, and needed a little more offensive power.

"I thought Claire was unbelievable; she was fearless, and I thought she wanted to win. We just needed a little bit more."

BYU Nike Invitational

All-Tournament Team

• Tamara Otene, Georgia Tech (MVP)
• Larissa Mendes, Georgia Tech
• Bianca Bertolino, Georgia Tech
• Claire Little, BYU
• Alex Bower, BYU

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