PROVO, Utah, March 9, 2003 - In the second night of a double-header, the 10th-ranked Penn State men's volleyball team outlasted third-ranked BYU in five games (27-30, 30-24, 30-32, 30-27, 15-11) to improve to 14-4 on the year. The Cougars fall to 13-4 overall.
"This was a great match and I'm very pleased with how the team came back after Friday night's loss," said head coach Mark Pavlik. "We didn't fold and we kept chipping away, it was a great team effort. We challenged each and every player after the last match and we are very happy with how they responded."
Five Nittany Lions ended up with double-digit kill numbers, led by seniors Carlos Guerra (Tamaulipus, Mexico) with 18 and Zeljko Koljesar (Kitchener, Ontario) with 16. Junior Norm Keil (St. James, N.Y.) tied his season-high with 15 kills while both senior Zach Slenker (Dallastown, Pa.) and junior Keith Kowal (Reading, Pa.) chipped in 14 kills. Penn State outhit BYU .387 to .378 led by Keil who hit .737 (15-1-19) for the match.
Freshman setter Dan O'Dell (Rochester, N.Y.) ended the night with 69 assists after receiving stitches in his lip after a collision in the third game. Junior libero Ricky Mattei (San Juan, Puerto Rico) posted a match-high 10 digs as Penn State outdug the Cougars 40 to 30. Kowal and Guerra added seven digs while O'Dell and Koljesar chipped in six.
BYU outblocked Penn State 13.5 to 10.0 as both O'Dell and Kowal recorded four blocks and Guerra added three.
The Cougars were led by Jonathan Alleman and Rafael Paal with 18 and 16 kills, respectively. Carlos Moreno dished out 67 assists and Fernando Pessoa led the squad with nine digs. Eight different players posted a block in the match led by Michael Burke with seven.
The Lions travel to Long Beach State for matches next weekend before returning home to face Ohio State on March 28 beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Rec Hall.
Please visit Penn State's official athletic website, www.GoPSUsports.com for updated statistics and news on the Nittany Lion men's volleyball team and Penn State's 28 other sports.
