No. 13 USC Men's Volleyball Drops Four-Set Decision to No. 7 Stanford

Saturday, April 13

Stanford, Calif.

6:00 PM

USC

12-14,3-9MPSF

Stanford

13-11,6-6MPSF

Southern California

Stanford

Photo by: Drake Lee

No. 13 USC Men's Volleyball Drops Four-Set Decision to No. 7 Stanford

April 13, 2024 | Men's Volleyball

Box Score Box Score Highlights

The Trojans end the regular season in sixth place in the final MPSF standings

STANFORD, Calif. – The 13th-ranked USC men's volleyball team (12-14, 3-9 MPSF) was defeated in four sets (25-21, 25-16, 21-25, 28-26) by No. 7 Stanford (13-11, 6-6) at Maples Pavilion on Saturday, April 13. The loss solidifies the Cardinal into a fourth-place finish in the final Mountain Pacific Sports Federation standings. The Trojans finish the regular season in sixth place.

KEY PLAYERS

Redshirt Fr. OPP Noah Roberts had a team-high 13 kills with four digs and a service ace.
Sr. MB Kyle Paulson matched his career high with 10 kills (1e, 16att) with .562 hitting and added four blocks and an ace.
Jr. S Josh Friedman came off the bench and logged his first-career double-double with 27 assists and 12 digs. He also tallied three blocks and had a kill.
Redshirt Jr. Jack Deuchar played at the left pin and posted 10 kills with five digs and added two service aces.
Redshirt Fr. OH Riley Haine put up eight kills and set a new career mark with 11 digs.
For the Cardinal, Will Rottman led with 17 kills and 11 digs to go with five blocks and two service aces. Kevin Lamp added 13 kills with 12 digs and two blocks. Ethan Hill had 12 kills on .800 hitting and five blocks. Nathan Lietzke posted 53 assists and had seven digs and seven blocks.

HOW IT HAPPENED

The Trojans went back and forth with the Cardinal in the opening set, but Stanford used a 6-1 run to close out a 25-22 win. The Cardinal hit .367 and were led by four kills from Lamp while the Trojans hit .147 with five kills from Haine and four more from Paulson who hit .667 without an error (6att).
USC managed eight kills but had eight errors in the second set and hit .000 as Stanford went up, 2-0, with a 25-16 win. Deuchar had half of the offensive output with four kills, but Stanford hit .542 with 14 kills and added two aces.
In a back-and-forth race to 25 that saw seven ties, USC was led by Roberts' six kills in a 25-21 third-set win. Deuchar and Markus Olsson each added three kills and USC hit .314 to get on the scoreboard.
Set four was tied 12 times but the Trojans forced extra points and denied the Cardinal on match point four times before Stanford closed out a 28-26 win. Rottman had six of his kills in the fourth and helped Stanford score 22.0 points in the win.

UP NEXT

As the sixth seed in the MPSF tournament, USC draws third-seeded BYU (16-8, 7-5 MPSF) in the second quarterfinal match set for a 5:30 p.m. PT first serve on Wednesday, April 17, at Galen Center. The other two quarterfinals are set for 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Semifinals will be played on Thursday, April 18, at 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. with the championship match set for Saturday, April 20, at 6 p.m. All matches will be shown live on FloSports.com. Tickets for all sessions are now available at USCTrojans.com/tickets.

MATCH NOTES

USC fell to 72-39 all-time against Stanford and has lost three in a row to the Cardinal.
The Trojans moved to 5-13 in matches with AVCA top 20 opponents this season.

For more information on the USC men's volleyball team and a complete schedule and results, please visit USCTrojans.com/MVB. Fans of the Trojans can follow @USCmensvolley on X and Instagram.