Cougs down Colorado State in 5

PROVO — The No. 19 BYU women's volleyball team needed five games Saturday to defeat visiting Colorado State 28-30, 30-28, 30-27, 23-30, 15-11.

Outside hitters Erica Lott and Chelsea Goodman led the way for the Cougars (10-1, 2-0) with 26 and 20 kills, respectively, and All-American middle blocker Lindsy Hartsock recorded a season-high 10 blocks.

"I guess most importantly (is that) we found a way," BYU coach Jason Watson said. "It wasn't pretty at times. It wasn't representative of what we've been able to do in the past, but we found a way to pull it out."

In the decisive fifth game, the Cougars seized a 6-3 advantage on the strength of strong blocking at the net by Hartsock and Bryn Porter. The Rams, however, would not go quietly into the night and fought back to trail by a single point at 12-11. With Hartsock serving and BYU clinging to the slimmest of leads, Lott slammed home three straight kills to close out Colorado State (5-6, 0-2).

"We pulled out that fifth game I thought rather nicely," Watson said. "I think that was a great test for our team to see where we're at and (whether) we're mature enough to battle some adversity and come back like we did."

Following Cougar victories in games two and three, the Rams forced a fifth game by taking the fourth 30-23.

BYU barely averted disaster at the end of the second game. After dropping Game 1 28-30, the Cougars played solidly for most of a second stanza in which they led by as many as eight points on three different occasions; at 29-24, they had the luxury of five game points. But four points later at 29-28, the Cougars were on the verge of blowing their quintet of game points and possibly falling behind two games to none. Desperately trying to quell the Colorado State comeback, Watson called timeout at 29-27 and again at 29-28. Rachel Dyer finally clinched the game for BYU with a clean spike of a Jenna Judkins set coming out of the second of the back-to-back timeouts.

Judkins totaled 61 assists. Tonya Mokelki tallied 21 kills to lead four Rams double digits.

Saturday's match was only the second this season that BYU won without sweeping its opponent in three games — the other time it happened was Sept. 1 when the Cougars needed four games to oust No. 4 Stanford.

UTAH 3, AIR FORCE 0: It was another 3-0 win for the No. 21-ranked University of Utah volleyball team (9-2 overall, 2-0 Mountain West) as it swept its ninth opponent of the season, beating Air Force Academy in three games.