No. 12 BYU Women’s Volleyball Defeats Utah In Front Of Record Crowd

Sep 13, 2023, 10:05 PM | Updated: 10:07 pm

BYU Women's Volleyball, Game Recap, Utah Utes...

BYU Volleyball defeated rival Utah, 3-1 on September 13, 2023. (Donovan Kelly/BYU Photo)

(Donovan Kelly/BYU Photo)

KSL Sports

PROVO, Utah – BYU women’s volleyball didn’t let one loss turn into two. The 12th-ranked Cougars lost to Washington State last Friday night, but that didn’t impact their intensity for Wednesday night’s rivalry game against Utah.

BYU defeated the Utes 3-1 in front of the biggest crowd to ever watch a women’s volleyball game in the Smith Fieldhouse. A total of 5,528 fans attended Wednesday night’s match. The crowd exceeded the previous high of 5,507 set last year against Duke.

𝑹𝑬𝑪𝑶𝑹𝑫 𝑨𝑻𝑻𝑬𝑵𝑫𝑨𝑵𝑪𝑬 𝑻𝑶𝑵𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻 𝑭𝑶𝑹 𝑾𝑶𝑴𝑬𝑵’𝑺 𝑽𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑬𝒀𝑩𝑨𝑳𝑳💙 Thank you Cougar Nation for coming out to support!!! pic.twitter.com/xDh3uGtAi1

— BYU Women’s Volleyball (@BYUwvolleyball) September 14, 2023

Star outside hitter Erin Livingston led the way for BYU with 16 kills. Freshman standout Claire Little contributed another 14 kills after back-to-back matches with zero against UC Irvine and Washington State.

BYU Women’s Volleyball improves to 9-1

The win improves BYU’s record to 9-1. Utah drops below .500 to 4-5 on the year.

BYU won the first set against the Utes in dominating fashion, 25-13. Then Utah got the upper hand in set two with a 25-23 victory. After that, it was all BYU, 25-19 and 25-16.

Both the Utes and Cougars now eye the end of their non-conference schedules before ramping up for league play.

What’s Next for the Cougars, Utes

BYU will close out its non-conference schedule with a pair of in-state road games on Friday night against UVU and then Utah State in Logan on Saturday. The Cougars begin their inaugural Big 12 Conference schedule at home against Houston on September 20.

Utah finishes its out-of-league schedule with Weber State on Friday night. Then kicks off the Pac-12 season on September 21 against Colorado.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X and Threads: @Mitch_Harper.