1 / 4

The BYU men's volleyball team celebrates a point during a match against Long Island at the Smith Fieldhouse on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

2 / 4

BYU's Kupono Browne (13) takes a swing against Long Island during a men's college volleyball match at the Smith Fieldhouse on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

3 / 4

The BYU bench reacts to a score in a men's college volleyball match against Long Island at the Smith Fieldhouse on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

4 / 4

BYU's Trent Moser (9) takes a swing over a triple block from Long Island during a men's college volleyball match at the Smith Fieldhouse on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

❮ ❯

On “007 Night” in the Smith Fieldhouse honoring all things James Bond, it was a bit of a mystery how BYU ended up getting a sweep.

The eight-ranked Cougars earned a 25-23, 25-22, 25-16 victory against Long Island University in front of 2,911 fans on Thursday but did so without a dominating performance in most of the key statistics.

Perhaps it was the 12-day break since its last action after playing six matches in nine days, but BYU struggled to get past the Sharks, who play in the Northeast Conference which just adopted Division I volleyball last year.

The first two sets were very close and it wasn’t until the third set that BYU jumped out to an 11-1 lead and got untracked offensively for a bit. Still, LIU put up a fight and closed to within 17-13 before the Cougars managed to put the visitors away.

Trent Moser led BYU (8-3) with 10 kills, hitting just .095. Kupono Browne (.462) and Miks Ramanis (.250) had seven kills each for the Cougars, which hit only .247 after coming into the match at .301.

Long Island (3-7) got 11 kills from Gio Collazo (.318) and hit .230 but had a higher hitting percentage than BYU for most of the match. The Sharks also outblocked the home team 8.0 to 5.0.

How did the Cougars get it done?

“Our serving and passing was really good tonight,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “That was the only thing that was the difference because in the first two sets they (LIU) were beating us offensively and beating us defensively. Later in the third set we took care of things better on our side of the net.”

The Cougars did have a 6-1 advantage in aces, with Browne serving up four of them.

“I think a lot of it comes down to serving and passing, and then receiving,” Browne said. “That’s kind of the only reason we pulled a sweep. We weren’t all that great on defense covering or on offense either. I just think serving and passing was our saving grace.”

Neither team had more than a two-point lead in a closely contested first set. The Cougars took a 16-14 lead on a Moser kill but the Sharks went on a 4-0 to take an 18-16 advantage. With the set tied at 21, BYU surged with an LIU hitting error and a Gavin Julien kill resulting in a 23-21 lead. At second set point, the Cougars finally won it on another LIU error, 25-23.

The Sharks outhit the Cougars .267 to .179 in the first set. Luke Benson led BYU with six kills (.417). Gio Collazo and Kale Spencer had five kills each for LIU.

The Sharks got out to a 5-1 lead in Set 2 but Browne recorded an ace and a kill to rally the Cougars back to take a 7-6 lead. BYU led by as many as three points in the set but could never pull away from LIU. It was 21-18 for BYU went Moser wiped a shot off the Sharks block and eventually the Cougars won 25-22, again on an LIU service error.

BYU finally cracked the .300 barrier by getting hot late in Set 2 and finishing at .350, but the Sharks again won that battle by hitting .360.

The Cougars did everything right to start Set 3, going up 9-1 on a Browne kill and 11-2 when Browne’s serve snuck over the net for an ace. LIU rallied and trailed just 17-3 on a block, but a Jared Brady kill and another Browne ace got BYU back on track. Olmstead substituted freely near the end of Set 3 and freshman middle Caleb Sorensen had a nice showing. He killed an overpass to give the Cougars a 23-15 lead and fired off an ace serve at match point for the 25-16 victory.

Long Island won the NEC title last season and were picked to win it again this year. The Sharks pulled off an early upset with a 3-1 victory against No. 12 Lewis on Jan. 27 and another NEC team, Daemen, upset then-No. 12 UC Santa Barbara 3-2 on Feb. 2.

“I don’t get enough credit for what I may know or maybe what I don’t know,” Olmstead said. “I do a Zoom interview with BYUtv the day before the match and I told them this team (LIU) was good. They can play and they have good pieces. I said, ‘If we let them hang around, before we know it it’s going to be 21-21 in the first set.’ And what do you know, it was 21-21. I told our guys the same thing. I think we just need to come out more aggressively and way more assertive as if they are playing the teams we have in the next two weeks with Grand Canyon and UCLA.”

BYU and Long Island will meet again on Saturday in the Smith Fieldhouse.