USC Men's Volleyball Swept Again By No. 5 Pepperdine
For the second time in 3 days, the No. 5-ranked Pepperdine men's volleyball team swept unranked USC, this time 25-19, 25-17, 25-21 in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu on Friday (Feb. 26).
Pepperdine improved to 6-2 overall and in the MPSF, while USC dropped its fourth match in a row match to fall to 1-4 overall and in the MPSF.
The teams also played on Wednesday (Feb. 24) at USC, a 25-23, 25-17, 30-28 Pepperdine victory. The series' third meeting was originally scheduled to be played on Feb. 4 but was postponed due to COVID-19 issues in the USC program and has yet to be rescheduled.
Billy Fauntleroy had a match-high 14 kills for USC while hitting .391. Adam Flood added 7 kills and Danny Sutton Farrell had 4 blocks as both players made their first starts of the season.
Pepperdine was led by Spencer Wickens, who had 10 kills while hitting .692 and he added 4 aces. Noah Dyer had 9 kills (hitting .471), Austin Wilmot had 7 kills (hitting .417) and 4 blocks, Andersen Fuller had 5 blocks and 3 aces and Bryce Dvorak had 5 blocks.
The Waves hit .344 in the match to USC's .250, they served 10 aces to Troy's 1 and they had 9.5 blocks (USC had 6.0).
Pepperdine moved out to a 10-7 lead in the first set and USC could never get closer than a point deficit the rest of the set as the Waves hit. 381.
Pepperdine scored the first 2 points of the second set and never surrendered the lead while serving 6 aces and notching 4 blocks.
It was more of the same in the third set, as the Waves jumped out to a quick 6-3 margin and USC couldn't recover as Pepperdine served 3 more aces and added 3 more blocks while hitting .348.
USC now hosts back-to-back MPSF matches next week in the Galen Center, facing No. 1 BYU on Friday (March 5) at 2 p.m. PT and then Concordia on Saturday (March 6) at 5 p.m. PT. The Concordia match is the first of 3 straight matches that Troy will play against the Eagles.