Nov. 15, 2001

LARAMIE, Wyo. -

The Wyoming Cowgirl Volleyball Team (9-15 overall, 4-10 MWC) closed out the 2001 season with a three game loss, 30-13, 30-16, 30-23, to the 18th ranked Brigham Young Cougars (19-6 overall, 10-4 MWC), on Thursday night, at the Mountain West Conference Championship.

The Cougars came out and established themselves early in the first game allowing the Cowgirls to only score four points to take the 16-4 lead. After that Brigham Young closed out the game going on a 14-5 run and a final of 30-13.

Game two started out very similar to the first with Brigham Young taking the early 12-4 advantage. The Cowgirls were never really in it, as the Cougars would win the game 30-16 and take a 2-0 lead in the match.

Despite a good effort by the Cowgirls, BYU closed out the match with a 30-23 score in game three taking the match 3-0. Brigham Young will face the Utah Utes in the semi-final match tomorrow night.

Senior Rachel Lau finished her night with 11 kills and hit .200 on the evening to lead the Cowgirls. For her career, she finishes sixth in service aces and ninth in blocks all-time in school history, plus recorded 788 career kills.

"Obviously, this wasn't the outcome we were looking for," said head coach Susan Steadman. "We didn't come out very aggressively, maybe we were a little nervous, but we were not able to get into our offense because of our poor serve receive. BYU is too good of a team to give free balls and easy points, and that was essentially how we started out the match. We fought hard to get back into the flow of things, but it was too late."

"I was proud of the way Rachel Lau played tonight. She really has been our steady player throughout the year. I wish we could have come out a little more aggressively, because BYU got the momentum from the beginning and we weren't able to stop that."