TEMPE – After a dominating win earlier in the week against Texas Tech, No. 6 Arizona State came out and won a nail-biter against No. 21 BYU in four sets, 17-25, 28-26, 25-23, 25-21.
After winning the third set, it seemed like everything was going the Sun Devils’ way.
After quickly taking a 9-5 lead, ASU (20-3, 11-1 Big 12) held on to that lead all the way until the end; finishing the set without losing the lead, winning 25-211 and the match 3-1.
But out the gate, this game showed that it was going to be back-and-forth and remain that way until the end.
“We are a pretty resilient team,” head coach JJ Van Niel said. “We’ve been doing it all year. I’m probably more stressed than they are on the sideline. I think I aged a few years today..”
After ASU kicked off the first set by taking a 13-8 lead, a BYU (18-7, 6-7 Big 12) timeout killed the Sun Devils’ momentum. Coming out of it, there was a shift in the game with BYU coming out and ripping off 10-straight points to take the lead.
With a push at the end of the set and with help from the massive crowd that came to support the Cougars all the way from Provo, Utah, BYU finished off the set, taking it 17-25.
The one thing that the Sun Devils couldn’t defend was the serve. As one of, if not, the best serving teams in the Big 12, BYU showed off their skills on the serve, finishing the match with 10 aces including five from BYU’s junior outside hitter Claire Little Chambers.
“We have been in this position before when we played BYU the first time, they are a great serving team,” senior outside hitter Bailey Miller said. “It’s not that I’m a bad passer. I think I just needed to have that reset and I told the team ‘I’m not going to throw myself a pity party.’ I just needed a mental reset.”
The second set started off the same way with ASU jumping ahead 5-1 thanks to three errors from the Cougars and two kills from graduate middle blocker Colby Neal, who ended the match with eight. This lead only lasted briefly though as in the blink of an eye, BYU came back and knotted the set at 14.
BYU stayed hot even after an ASU timeout, going up 20-17 before the Sun Devils slowly started closing the gap and tied the match up at 20. This kept going back-and-forth for the reminder of the set until the two found themselves tied at 26.
Thankfully for the Sun Devils, a service error and massive block by redshirt freshman outside hitter Kiylah Presley and Neal together gave them the set, winning it 28-26 and tying the match at a set a piece.
“The beauty of our system is we have weapons everywhere,” Neal said. “I look to my left and its Bailey and I look to my right and I see Noemi, I’m like ‘I’d hate to block us right now.’”
The third set was the closest of the entire match with the largest lead of the match being just three when the Cougars had a 13-10 lead over the Devils. Other than that, the teams stayed within two points of each other the whole set.
That is until an attacking error and kill by junior outside hitter Noemie Glover gave the Sun Devils what they needed, taking the set 25-23 and a 2-1 lead.
This was almost entirely a game of defense for both sides.
“Really, it was about being scrappy on defense,” Van Niel said. “I thought we really fought during that, and we continued to come out and survive tough. I think (Ella) Lewis came out and served some tough balls, so I thought we kept the pressure on them.”
Coming into the match with the highest hitting percentage in the Big-12, BYU was struggling at the net against the Sun Devils. They ended the match with just a .175 hit%, highlighted by an awful .056% in the second set.
This was helped majorly by the defense of the Sun Devils, both at the net and on the floor. Not only did they finish with an astonishing 61 digs as a team led by sophomore Faith Frame with 17 in her first start of the season, but they also were pests at the net, ending the match with 11 blocks led by Glover and Neal who both had six.
“Faith really worked hard on a few things we asked her to do defensively,” Van Niel said. “I think she’s really finding her groove right now as we head towards the end of the season.”
Offensively, the Sun Devils were led once again by Miller who had her second match of the season with 20+ kills, ending the day with 20.
ASU will gear up now for one last home game before they hit the road again. This one coming in the form of Arizona, starting at 7 p.m. on Thursday.
“Our team loves it,” coach Van Niel said. “I think it’s been a huge key since I walked in the door here. All the fan support, our players love it.”
