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The weekend in college men’s volleyball featured everything from UCLA accomplishing a feat never achieved before at the Outrigger Invitational to another team atop the nationally rankings dropping a match.
Check out the five things to take away from this weekend in college men’s volleyball.
1. UCLA remains dominant at Outrigger — UCLA went undefeated in its three matches at the Outrigger Invitational to become the first program to win the annual non-conference tournament in four consecutive seasons. Outside attacker Robart Page was named the Outrigger Invitational most valuable player and led the tournament with 51 combined kills, including a match-high 16 kills in the defacto championship match against Hawai’i on Saturday. To read more about the Bruins winning the Outrigger Invitational, click here.
2. BYU recovers from slow start — BYU after starting the season with two non-conference losses bounced back with two conference wins during the weekend, including upsetting No. 1 Long Beach State in four games on Saturday. In addition, All-American Outside attacker Taylor Sander had a match-high 24 kills and 11 digs against the 49ers.
3. No. 1 goes down again — For the second consecutive week, the No. 1 team in the national coaches poll lost as Long Beach State (2-1, 1-1 MPSF) dropped a road conference match to BYU (2-2, 2-0 MPSF) on Saturday. This loss likely will also result in another school becoming the third team this season to be ranked No. 1 when the new coaches poll released Monday. The last time a season started with a new team at No. 1 in each of the first three national coaches polls was 1987.
4. Stanford rolls in non-conference play — No. 5 Stanford remained undefeated as it beat No. 9 Lewis in four games and swept Grand Canyon during a weekend non-conference homestand. The Cardinal (3-0, 0-0 MPSF) in its victory against the Flyers (2-2, 0-0 MPSF) had a season-high 14 aces, while outside attacker Steven Irvin had a match-high 20 kills. To read more about Stanford’s non-conference win, click here.
5. Taylor leads Pepperdine to strong start — Outside attacker Josh Taylor had a career-high 24 kills to help No. 7 Pepperdine (2-0, 2-0 MPSF) defeat No. 4 UC Irvine in its conference opener Friday. Taylor also added a match-high 14 kills as Pepperdine swept UC San Diego on Saturday to end its season-opening homestand undefeated.