May 10, 2004

By Ray Dise
Special to CollegeSports.com from CVU.com

For the second year in a row the NCAA National Championship match went five games and for the second year in a row Brigham Young was there. But this year the result was different, the Cougars won.

No. 1 Brigham Young (29-4) won its second title in four years, and its third overall in the last six years. The Cougars improved to 7-1 in NCAA championship action with a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over No. 2 Long Beach State (28-7). The match marked the fourth time this season that BYU has defeated LBSU. Three of the four matches went five games. In the matches that went five games, the fifth game was as close as 16-14 on January 28, 15-13 on January 30, and 19-17 in the championship match.

Playing in an uncharacteristic fashion in game one of the title match, the Cougars scored only 15 points, which was the lowest total for one team in one of the first four games of a match since rally-scoring became part of the game in 2001. Not to be outdone in this dubious category, Long Beach State only score 18 points in game two of the match, the second lowest point total for a rally scoring game. The previous low as 19 points by Ball State in 2002.

Long Beach had three players (Tyler Hildebrand, Scott Touzinsky, and Duncan Budinger) named to the All-Tournament team while BYU was represented by two (Carlos Moreno, also named the Most Outstanding Player, and Fernando Pessoa) and Lewis and Penn State had one player (Jeff Soler and Keith Kowal respectively) honored.

Hawaii has hosted the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship three times (1991, 1998, and 2004) and had set the records for single match (9,822) and two-day total (18,901) attendance in 1998. This year the NCAA Championships drew 7,812 for the three matches.

After surviving the back-and-forth match, in which both teams looked alternatingly unbeatable and uptight, Brigham Young coach Tom Peterson became the first men's volleyball coach to lead two different schools to National Championships. Peterson had been denied in his first attempt at winning the National Championship with BYU last season when the Cougars were upset by Lewis in a similar five-game thriller.

Peterson's accomplishment is the latest in a mini-trend of like-accomplishments begun on the women's side of the net. Stanford Coach John Dunning became the first coach to lead two different programs to the National Championship in 2001 when his Stanford squad won the title. Dunning had previously led Pacific to a pair of national titles in 1985-86.

In 2002 the feat was turned again by Southern Cal Women's Coach Mick Haley, whose Trojans have won the last two women's titles. Haley led the Texas Longhorns to the title in 1988.

Long Beach State's Scott Touzinsky had five aces to tie the championship record shared by five others. It is the second consecutive year that a player has recorded five aces in the NCAA Championship match. Brigham Young's Rafael Paal registered five aces against Lewis in the 2003 title match. The 49ers registered 10 aces in the championship match and seven in their semifinal match against Penn State, but were not close to breaking Ohio State's records for aces in a match (21) and aces in the tournament (22) set in 1986.

Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe, a star on the 49ers' 1991 championship team, narrowly missed becoming the third person to win an NCAA Men's Volleyball National Championship as both a player and a coach. Rod Wilde, who played and coached with Pepperdine, and Bob Yoder, who won as a player and coach of Southern Cal, are the two previous individuals.

The 49ers earned their fifth second-place finish, tying them with UCLA and Pepperdine for the second place. Brigham Young's third title places them fourth among schools that have won titles. UCLA is first with 18 and Southern Cal and Pepperdine are tied for second with four each.

The Cougars' NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship winning percentage of .875 (7-1) is second only to UCLA's .891 (49-6). Long Beach State's winning percentage of .667 (12-6) ranks fifth all-time.