Utah made the rematch uglier, longer and much closer than the first meeting. BYU still found one part of the match the Utes could not survive.
The serve.
No. 9 BYU beat Utah 25-23, 25-27, 25-13, 25-21 Friday night at Smith Fieldhouse. The Cougars moved to 18-1 overall and 10-0 in the Big 12, swept the regular-season rivalry series and extended their winning streak to 15 matches.
The scoreline hides how little separated the attacks. BYU had 52 kills. Utah had 51. BYU hit .219; Utah hit .205. The Utes even won the dig count 51-45.
BYU’s advantage came at the two places where a rally can end before either offense settles. The Cougars served 11 aces to Utah’s two and won the block count 12-9. Brooke Hardy supplied four aces, six blocks and 10 kills on only 17 swings. Anna Blamires added 10 kills at a .471 clip.
That was enough to turn a one-kill attacking edge into a 16-point advantage across the four set scores.
BYU-Utah match receipt
| Category | BYU | Utah |
|---|---|---|
| Final | 3 | 1 |
| Set scores | 25, 25, 25, 25 | 23, 27, 13, 21 |
| Kills | 52 | 51 |
| Attack errors | 22 | 24 |
| Attempts | 137 | 132 |
| Hitting percentage | .219 | .205 |
| Aces | 11 | 2 |
| Service errors | 9 | 13 |
| Blocks | 12 | 9 |
| Digs | 45 | 51 |
The pregame guide asked whether Utah could turn one dangerous service rotation into sustained pressure. The Utes did more than that. They pushed the opening set to 22-22, took the second in extra points and opened the fourth with a 7-2 lead.
What Utah could not do was control the first contact for four sets. BYU’s 11 aces were not a decorative edge around a dominant attack. They were the attack’s margin for error on a night when Claire Little Chambers and Elli Mortensen combined for 15 hitting errors.
The Cougars did not need their two volume pins to be clean. They needed the serve, block and lower-volume attackers to keep buying points until the pins found enough finishes.
Utah earned the second set twice
BYU survived four ties after 18 in the opening set. Little Chambers scored the final two points, including a smart swing off the Utah block, to finish a 25-23 win.
The second set looked ready to repeat the same escape. Utah led 22-18 after a four-point run and had BYU’s offense stuck in its worst stretch of the night. The Cougars had 10 attack errors in the set and hit .044.
Then BYU scored four straight to tie it at 22. Hardy put away two kills around the late scramble, and a Burgess-Prior block moved the Cougars in front 25-24. Utah had already lost the first meeting in straight sets and the opening set of this one by two. This was the point where the rematch could have folded into another BYU close.
It did not.
Kamryn Gibadlo tied the set, a BYU attack error gave Utah another chance, and Devyn Wiest ended it 27-25. The Utes won the set despite committing nine attack errors because they produced 16 kills, three blocks and enough late offense to answer BYU’s recovery.
Utah did not steal that set on one strange whistle or one loose ball. It built a four-point lead, lost it, then won the final three rallies after BYU reached set point. That is a real answer.
It also forced BYU to show whether its first-match sweep had left it with another plan.
The third set was the whole match in miniature
The teams were tied at seven early in the third. BYU then took four straight points, carried a 15-10 lead into the media timeout and pushed the margin to 20-13.
Utah never scored again.
The Cougars closed on an 8-0 run and won 25-13. Utah committed four straight errors during the final stretch. Hardy’s third ace of the night accounted for another point, and Mortensen finished the set with a kill.
The set totals explain the break. BYU hit .259 with 10 kills, four aces and five blocks. Utah hit minus-.036, producing seven kills against eight attack errors. A rivalry match that had spent most of the first two sets within one rotation suddenly had a 12-point set.
BYU did not create that separation by feeding one unstoppable hitter. No Cougar had more than four kills in the third. The Cougars created it by taking away clean beginnings and clean endings.
Four aces damaged Utah before its offense could form. Five blocks waited when the Utes did get a swing. Those are different pressures, but they ask the same question: can the setter still create a good choice from a bad first contact?
For eight straight points at the end of the set, Utah’s answer was no.
Hardy and Blamires carried the clean swings
Little Chambers still led BYU with 12 kills and recorded 10 digs for a double-double. Mortensen added 11 kills. Both absorbed the high-volume work, taking 71 of BYU’s 137 swings between them.
They also combined for 15 errors and hit .113.
That would sink a more predictable offense. BYU had two cleaner routes available.
Hardy finished with 10 kills, one error and a .529 hitting percentage. Blamires had 10 kills, two errors and hit .471. Together they produced 20 kills with three errors on 34 attempts, exactly a .500 clip.
The contrast mattered most after Utah’s block and floor defense made the pins labor. Little Chambers took 44 swings. Mortensen took 27. Utah could devote attention to those lanes because they kept receiving the difficult balls. Hardy and Blamires punished the space that attention created.
Hardy’s line reached every phase. Her four aces led the match. Her six blocks tied Kelli Jo Burgess for BYU’s lead. She scored 17 points, the highest individual total on either side, and ended the match from the service line.
Blamires gave BYU a different kind of release. Her 10 kills came on only 17 attempts, and she added three block assists. Utah had to defend a right-side option converting nearly half her swings while also accounting for Hardy at the net and the two pins on the outside.
Burgess had only three kills, but she committed no attack errors and shared the team lead with six blocks. Kate Prior added four blocks. BYU’s lower-volume attackers did not merely fill out the box score. They supplied the match’s efficient swings and most of the net pressure.
BYU answered the 7-2 fourth-set hole without panic
Utah left the 25-13 third set behind quickly. The Utes scored five straight to open a 7-2 lead in the fourth, exactly the kind of response that can send a rivalry match toward five.
BYU called timeout and stopped treating the deficit like an emergency.
The Cougars worked back to 10-9, tied the set at 11 on consecutive Utah attack errors and moved ahead 13-11 when Mortensen and Hardy closed a block. By the media timeout, BYU led 15-13.
From 7-2 down to 13-11 up, the Cougars won an 11-4 stretch. They did it without another avalanche of aces or blocks. The fourth-set attack finally became clean: 16 kills, two errors, 30 swings and a .467 hitting percentage.
Utah hit .343 and produced 17 kills in the set. The Utes were not shut down. BYU simply removed the errors that had kept the second set open and forced Utah to score almost every point with a finish.
Prior had three kills without an error in the fourth. Little Chambers had three kills on four swings. Blamires added three more kills on five attempts. The distribution widened just as Utah’s offense reached its best set.
Hardy’s ace ended it 25-21. That finish was fitting, but the larger answer came earlier. BYU took Utah’s best opening run and rebuilt the set one ordinary sideout at a time.
The rivalry sweep showed two versions of BYU
BYU’s Oct. 15 win in Salt Lake City was an offensive show. The Cougars hit .412, swept three sets and never let Utah’s early service pressure become a full-match problem.
The rematch was different. BYU hit .219. Utah won a set, outdug the Cougars and stayed within two points late in three of the four frames. Little Chambers and Mortensen did not repeat their combined .407 clip from the first match.
BYU still won because the rest of its game traveled across the rough patches. Eleven aces and 12 blocks gave the Cougars 23 direct scoring plays before counting any kill. Hardy and Blamires gave the setters efficient alternatives. The third set supplied the blowout; the fourth supplied the composure.
A clean sweep proves a team can impose its best version. This four-set win proved BYU can survive when that version never arrives.
The Cougars are 10-0 in conference play, but the more useful number is two. They have now beaten Utah once with elite hitting and once with serve-and-block pressure. The rivalry offered two different matches and BYU found a different answer in each.
What comes next
BYU begins a three-match road stretch at Colorado on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. Mountain on ESPN+. The Cougars then visit Iowa State before heading to Baylor.
The volleyball schedule carries the permanent event routes and upcoming assignments. The results page preserves the completed 3-1 final. Our first rivalry recap shows the offensive version of the matchup, while the Arizona State recap tracks the broader trend of BYU changing plans after a set gets away.
Utah made BYU play a second kind of rivalry match. The Cougars’ answer was 11 serves the Utes could not return and one fourth-set deficit they refused to rush.
Sources and further reading
- BYU Athletics: No. 9 Cougars grind out four-set win against Utes for the official set sequence, scoring runs and next match.
- BYU Athletics event 25243, official box score and article record 78321 for the stable event ID, completed status, 3-1 final, venue and official recap record.
- Finalized WMT match 6603897 and its player statistics for set scores, team totals, individual lines, records and attendance.
- Utah Athletics: Utah goes one of three against No. 9 BYU and the Utah box score for opponent-side confirmation of the final, set sequence and statistical totals.
- BYU’s official color guide and Utah’s official color guide for the verified palettes used in the original matchup art.
- BYU Sport Nuts: rematch watch guide, first Utah recap, volleyball schedule and roster.
