Early on in Tuesday's NCAA men's volleyball play-in match between No. 3 seed BYU and No. 6 seed Barton, it looked like the underdog Bulldogs were hanging tough, utilizing their brother tandem of Angelos and Vasilis Mandilaris to keep the game close. Unfortunately for Barton, the more experienced Cougars quickly found their groove and pulled away to a 25-19, 25-11, 25-15 sweep at St. John Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

The first 16 points of the match saw Barton stay within three of BYU. That is, until the Cougars' Jake Langlois and Tim Dobbert found their match legs and physically started overpowering the much smaller Bulldogs' block with an offensive barrage that closed out the first set.

In the second set, reality set in as BYU setter Leo Durkin served six points in a row, two of which were aces and two which were Barton hitting errors, giving BYU an early 8-2 lead. At that point, the BYU block took control of the net as middle Price Jarman, outside Brenden Sander, and Durkin rejected anything Barton could throw the Cougars' way. BYU coach Shawn Olmstead started substituting his players so his team could get experience playing in an NCAA match; the substitutions included Ben Patch at opposite and Will Stanley at setter.

In the third set, BYU's court dominance resulted in 10 attack errors by Barton. In addition, Ben Patch, who earned the starting nod in the third after coming in off the bench in the second, ended up serving seven of the last nine points of the match, four of which were aces.

BYU outhit Barton .351 to .067 and out-blocked the Bulldogs 18 1/2 to two. In addition, 13 Cougars players saw playing time in this NCAA play-in. In short, BYU was probably the most physical team Barton had played this season, and it seemed as if the Cougars were rarely threatened or challenged. The Bulldogs had 22 attack errors to BYU's eight.

With the win, the Cougars advance to play No. 2 seed Long Beach State in the NCAA DI-II semifinal on Thursday, May 4, at 6 PM ET.

MATCH NOTABLES

BYU

Brenden Sander -- 11 K, .409, 1 A, 1 BS, 7 BA
Jake Langlois -- 7 K, .316, 1 A, 5 digs, 4 BA
Ben Patch -- 5 A

Barton

Aleksa Brkovic -- 8 K
Angelos Mandilaris -- 8K