Cal Poly vs BYU 12-4-2025 WVB First Round

Dear Readers~

    Welcome to the first blog covering the 2025 Division 1 NCAA Women's Indoor Volleyball National Championships. The bracket includes a total of 64 teams to see who can make it to Kansas City and become the 2025 National Champions. For the first round I will be covering an unranked Cal Poly (California Polytechnic, based in San Luis Obispo, California) as they played #5 BYU (Brigham Young University, based in Provo, Utah) at USC's (University of Southern California) Galen Center in Los Angeles, California on December 4th at 5pm Pacific Time. BYU is ranked #5 in their quadrant of the bracket while Cal Poly is unranked. A few teams from their quadrant you've probably heard of (some I've covered earlier in the season) include UCLA, Princeton, Creighton, Tennessee, host USC, and #2 in the nation, Kentucky (some refer to this quadrant of the bracket the "Kentucky quadrant"). This will be the first time I've covered both of these teams this season, so let's see what happened in this game to make me want to cover them over the other games in the tournament.

    Going into this game, Cal Poly is coming off of two wins against Long Beach State and UC Davis (winning 3-1 in both of those) while BYU is coming off of 4 wins. Two of these were against Utah while the other two were against Arizona and Kansas. Going into the game, Cal Poly is sitting at a record of 25-7 while BYU is sitting at a record of 22-8. This is the only time this season the two will play each other, so who do you think will come out on top: #5 BYU or the unranked Cal Poly?

    Before we get into today's game, let's see who's coaching these teams. We'll be starting off with the higher ranked BYU. BYU's Head Coach is Heather Olmstead, the Associate Head Coach is David Hyte, and the Assistant Coach is Daniel Jones. Their support staff includes Halee Rogers as Director of Volleyball Operations, Drew Barbee as Technical Coordinator, Dan Graham as Associate Athletic Trainer, and Turreal Moore as Head Strength and Conditioning Coach. Now let's see who's on staff for the Cal Poly team. Their head coach is Caroline Walters, Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator is Jason Borchin, Assistant Coach is Addie Picha, and the Technical Coordinator is Franch Pham.

    If you've been following along this season, I'm sure you have an idea of how the sport works in the NCAA and the national championships are no different but for those who haven't seen my coverage of some of the earlier games in the season, let's explain. The NCAA indoor games are played anywhere from 3 to 5 sets. If you win 3 sets, you've won the game but if you lose 3 sets, you've lost the game, and this is the point in the season where if you lose, your season is over. The game can last anywhere from 3 to 5 sets. The first four sets are played first to 25 (which happens very often unless you're Nebraska or Kentucky for example) while the fifth set (if needed) is played first to 15. The thing is each set requires a lead of 2 points or more for the set to conclude. With most sets playing to 25, each team is given two timeouts for each set, just like how a timeout works in basketball. Just like in basketball, the NCAA lets teams switch out players up to 15 times each set but with 6 players on the court for each team, the changes need to be smart and strategic. With our explanation over, let's get into today's game from Los Angeles as we see who can win their first-round game and move on to the second round to play the host, USC.

    With this being such a big game, there's no doubt in everyone's mind of how important all of these games moving forward are. The first set would end at 25-19, in favor of Cal Poly and giving them a 1-0 lead. The second set ended at 25-17, and the biggest gap in the scoring of the game, with BYU taking that set and tying it up at 1-1. The third set would end at 25-20, in favor of BYU and giving them a lead of 2-1. The fourth set would end at 25-20 again but this time, Cal Poly would win it and tying it at 2-2 and causing a fifth set. The fifth set would go on to end at 15-10 in favor of Cal Poly and giving them the 3-2 win over BYU they needed to move on to the second round against USC. In the end, Cal Poly would score a total of 83 points while BYU would score 72 points of thier own.

    Let's see who some of our top players from each team are for this game. The stats we'll be looking at include kills, aces, blocks, assists, and digs. The leader in kills goes to Cal Poly's Kendall Beshear, with 20, while BYU's Suli Davis isn't far behind at 18, and Cal Poly's Emma Fredrick and BYU's Brielle Kemavor are next with 15 each. The leader in aces is actually a tie as Cal Poly's Emme Bullis, Emma Fredrick, and Kendall Beshear along with BYU's Lulu Uluave all have 2 aces each meanwhile BYU's Hannah Billeter and Alex Bower each have one ace of their own. The leader in blocks goes to Cal Poly's Charlotte Kelly, with 5, followed by Annabelle Thalken and Chloe Leluge each have 4 blocks of their own. The leader for BYU was Brielle Kemavor, with 3, followed by Sophia Callahan and Elena Wallace, each with 2 of their own. The leader in assists goes to Cal Poly's Emme Bullis, with an insane 52, while BYU was led by Alex Bower, with 48 of her own. The leader in digs goes to BYU's Lulu Uluave, with 19, while Cal Poly was led by Elif Hurriyet, with 16 of her own. The athlete that's showed up the most is Cal Poly's Kendall Beshear showing up in 4 of the 5 stats we've discussed. Beshear is an Outside Hitter who ended the game with 20 kills, 2 aces, 2 assists, and 12 digs. The only stat where she was not in the top three was blocks. As for BYU, they have a tie for their top mentioned person, which is between Alex Bower and Lulu Uluave, who each show up in 3 of the 5 stats discussed. Bower is a setter who ended the game with 1 ace, 48 assists, and 11 digs. As for Uluave, she is a Libero who ended the game with 2 aces, 4 assists, and 19 digs.

    With this being the end of BYU's season, they would end with a record of 22-9. Following this game, Cal Poly would go on to play USC and win 3-2 for the second round. As for the third round, Cal Poly would play Kentucky and get knocked out of the tournament with Kentucky winning 3-0, and being the only unranked team to make it to the third round.

Cal Poly's first round gameday post as they played BYU. Give them a follow over on their Instagram to see what they're up to this off season: @calpolyvolley

BYU's Matchday post as they took on Cal Poly. Give them a follow over on their Instagram to see what they're up to this off season: @byuwvolleyball

Cal Poly showing those on Instagram how the game ended

BYU showing those on Instagram the final score

The NCAA showing us who moves on to the second round. Give them a follow over on their Instagram: @ncaavolleyball

BYU giving their fans and followers a thank you for the 2025 season after the conclusion of this game

    This concludes the first round of the 2025 NCAA Division 1 National Championships as the teams work their way to the semifinals and finals taking place at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The second-round game will come out next as I cover the game between #3 Texas A&M and #6 TCU taking place in College Station, Texas. The last time they played each other, TCU won 3-2. How do you think this next matchup will end? Tune in next time to see how things go in Texas. If there are things you'd like me to add or take out from these games, let me know and until next time, Miller out

~J. Miller