Scooter Blake

Herald Correspondent

As a general rule, in any sport you need to have a short memory. In other words, you need to have the ability to shake off mistakes or losses, as well as be disciplined enough mentally to not bask in a big victory for too long.

The latter reason may have been to blame for the performance that the BYU men's volleyball team put on Saturday night at the Smith Fieldhouse, as the Cougars, who took home a 3-1 win the previous night against the No. 1-ranked Waves of Pepperdine, were swept 30-26, 30-22, 30-23 Saturday night and did not look like the same BYU squad that competed so fiercely the night before.

In front of a capacity crowd, BYU started strongly in the first game, leading 7-5 after a pair of kills from Andrew Stewart and great net defense from Russell Lavaja. But the lead and momentum were short-lived.

The Waves settled in by protecting the net and setting up well-timed hits, and despite six kills by BYU's Stewart, Pepperdine squeezed out 30-26 first-game victory.

Immediately following, Pepperdine began an offensive assault on the Cougars that had BYU on their heels defensively throughout the next two games.

Taking the second game behind powerful hitting from Cory Riecks and Maurice Torres, the Waves showed what a talented a defensive team they are by holding the Cougars to 22 points and digging just about every well-placed hit BYU managed to get -- which wasn't that many.

Unforced errors and poor passing by BYU littered the court in Set 3. Still, although the Cougars trailed 15-9 midway through the frame, they closed the gap to within two, 21-19, forcing a Pepperdine timout and giving the Cougars (and their fans) some much needed life. But a misplayed serve and a mix up on defense immediately followed, giving the momentum back to Pepperdine ,and the Waves slammed the door shut.

BYU was led by Stewart, who had 10 kills, and sophomore Lavaja, who added nine.

Pepperdine's Torres and Riecks had 14 and 12 kills, respectively.