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BYU's Jon Stanley (4), Teon Taylor (21) and Luke Benson (1) celebrate a point during a men's college volleyball match against Princeton at the Smith Fieldhouse on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU's Luke Benson takes a swing against Princeton in a men's college volleyball match at the Smith Fieldhouse on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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A BYU fan holds up a sign during a men's college volleyball match against Princeton at the Smith Fieldhouse on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU's Teon Taylor takes a swing against Princeton during a men's college volleyball match at the Smith Fieldhouse on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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The BYU men’s volleyball team doesn’t usually play on Mondays, but the Cougar fans who made it to the Smith Fieldhouse saw something quite unusual.

In the first set, No. 14 Princeton remarkably blocked five straight BYU swings and took a 15-10 lead.

Shocking.

The eighth-ranked Cougars, who have spent the past two weeks on the road, recovered nicely, rallying to win the first set and finishing with a sweep (25-23, 25-19, 25-21) in front of 2,735 Family Night fans.

“It was a little unusual,” BYU sophomore setter Tyler Herget said of his team’s slow start. “I really didn’t know what was going on. We just told each other we needed to get past this and once we did, I felt like they couldn’t stop us. We wanted to play well from the beginning but it took us about 15 points to get there.”

With the score tied at 8 in Set 1, Princeton went on its blocking run to quiet the Fieldhouse crowd and force a BYU time out.

“I just didn’t think we were covering for each other,” Cougar coach Shawn Olmstead said. “We weren’t supporting our teammates the way we need to and that’s what covering is about. We weren’t swinging well, we were swinging low and we weren’t helping each other out. Credit to them (Princeton) because they had their hands in the right places.”

The Cougars, who at one point were hitting -.333, finally got untracked offensively and eventually took a 19-18 lead after a Jon Stanley kill and a Princeton hitting error. The Tigers kept it close but BYU took a 22-20 lead on an ace from Herget. At second set point, Princeton sent a serve long for a 25-23 Cougar win. Luke Benson finished with four kills but BYU hit just .045 in the first set, mainly due to 7.5 Princeton blocks.

The Cougars looked more like themselves in Set 2. Benson’s bomb pushed BYU’s lead to 13-10 and Stanley tooled his swing off the block for a 15-11 advantage. BYU hit nearly .600 for most of the second set and picked up defensively. Stanley and Julien teamed up for a block and Julien also got help from Herget for another, giving the home team a 17-11 lead. Moser went off the triple block to make it 21-16 and Princeton couldn’t handle a BYU block that came back on their side for a 25-19 Cougar win.

BYU hit .571 in Set 2 and Moser finished with five kills.

Benson went back-to-back aces early in Set 3 for a 7-4 BYU lead. It was 12-8 after a Princeton hitting error but the Tigers closed to 14-13 after a Cougar overpass. In the rally of the match, Stanley hustled over to the Princeton side of the court to keep a ball alive, then teamed up with Teon Taylor for a block and a 16-13 BYU lead. The Cougars kept control with more good blocking from Taylor and a couple of Moser kills for a 21-14 advantage. The Tigers managed to trim the deficit to 23-20 but Moser went down the line to get to match point. After a BYU hitting error made it 24-21, Omene fired a serve that went long and the Cougars had the sweep.

Moser led BYU (6-1) with 12 kills and hit .333. Benson added eight kills for the Cougars, which ended up hitting .328 for the match. Herget had 27 assists and eight digs and BYU finished with nine team blocks.

“I think we’re really good at moving on to the next point,” Herget said. “We’re really good at forgetting about whatever happened. We’re moving on and encouraging each other to just play the next point. The people coming off the bench are really good at that.”

Olmstead credited Stanley’s insertion into the match as a big deal — “I started to look really dumb there for a little but but luckily Jon came in and made me a little smarter,” he said — and also lauded defensive specialist/libero Jackson Fife for playing well when he was subbed in to help with passing, a suggestion from his assistant coaches.

Nyherowo Omene led Princeton with 10 kills and Ben Harrington had nine, though he ended up with ten errors and a -.040 hitting percentage.

The Tigers (4-2) came into the game leading the country in service aces per set (3.57). Harrington, a senior pin hitter, set an NCAA record earlier this season with 13 aces in one match against Queens College of Charlotte. On Monday, the Tigers finished with five aces, three from Harrington.

The same two teams will meet in the Smith Fieldhouse on Tuesday. The Cougars are in the middle of playing six matches in nine days, with two meeting against UC Irvine slated for Friday and Saturday. BYU will play ten straight matches at the Fieldhouse over the next four weeks.