MORAGA, Calif. — In the penultimate match of the indoor season, Saint Mary's Volleyball returned home to wrap up the season with a pair of matches against the #15 BYU Cougars. Saint Mary's entered the match with aspirations of finishing the season over .500 if they were able to pull off a pair of upset wins over one of the top teams in the conference. While the Gaels were nearly able to sneak by in the third set, it was too little, too late, as BYU swept past the Gaels with finals of 25-17, 25-15, and 26-24. BYU ups their record to 13-1, while the Gaels fall to 7-9.
 
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Saint Mary's was nearly able to push the match to a fourth set, at which point anything could have happened. It was the best-played set of the afternoon, as Saint Mary's never trailed by more than three points. Down 18-15, the Gaels used a 4-0 run to take the lead and force BYU to call a timeout to regather. Ella Sandt had a pair of aces during the run that helped swing things over to the Gaels side. Another pivotal point was a service error from Jennifer "Boo" Laird that at the time gave BYU a 23-21 lead. Head Coach Rob Browning challenged the call and was successful, flipping it to an ace to tie the score at 22-22. SMC had the first crack at set point, up 24-23 after a kill from Chandler Cowell, but the Cougars responded with three straight points to close out the set and the match.
 
FINISHING THE YEAR STRONG
After a bit of a lull in the middle of the season, Elena Baka is finishing off the season with some of her best attacking. She racked up a match-best 14 kills on Friday afternoon, giving her four-consecutive matches of ten or more kills, her longest streak of the season. Baka was also the Gaels leading defender on the day, with 11 digs to pace SMC. Baka was chosen to the preseason All-WCC team and has been showing the conference why during the month of March, averaging nearly 15 kills and ten digs per match over her last four.
 
AMONG OTHER NUMBERS
Saint Mary's struggled early on in the blocking department, taking nearly two sets before picking up their first of the day…the Gaels finished with just four blocks overall, while Cowell and Trinity Durfee each had three…the Gaels were much better from the service line than BYU, as the Gaels had just two errors compared to 11 for BYU…SMC recorded 29 kills on the day, with 26 of them coming from Baka, Cowell, and Hawley Harrer.
 
UP NEXT
Saint Mary's closes out the regular season tomorrow with their final match of the year against #15 BYU. First serve is scheduled for 3:00 pm and, in a unique feature, there will be no Senior Day festivities as the Gaels do not have a true senior on this year's team. Following the match, the Gaels will shift to beach play for the remainder of the 2021 season. A reminder, fans will not be permitted inside University Credit Union Pavilion for the regular season finale.