No. 6 USC Men's Volleyball Set for Showdown with No. 4 Pepperdine

Thursday, April 16

Los Angeles, Calif.

7:00 p.m. PT

USC

Pepperdine

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USC men's volleyball outside hitter Dillon Klein attacks from the back row during a match against Menlo at Galen Center

Photo by: Kevin Kim

No. 6 USC Men's Volleyball Set for Showdown with No. 4 Pepperdine

April 13, 2026 | Men's Volleyball

#USCMVB Notebook (April 13)2026 USC Schedule Buy Tickets

The final MPSF standings will be determined in the last week of regular-season matches as the Trojans take on the Waves

LOS ANGELES – No. 6 USC (17-4, 9-3 MPSF) closes its regular-season schedule with a home-and-home against No. 4 Pepperdine (20-5, 11-1) this week. The Trojans and the Waves meet at Galen Center on Thursday night (April 16) at 7 p.m. PT for USC's Senior Night and then do it again on Saturday (April 18) at 6 p.m. at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu, Calif. Both matches will be shown live on Big Ten Plus streams. The match at Firestone Fieldhouse will be final time the teams meet in the venerable gymnasium. The Waves will host home contests at a new on-campus facility named The Mountain beginning in 2027.

THIS WEEK
No. 6 USC (17-4, 9-3 MPSF) vs. No. 4 Pepperdine (20-5, 11-1 MPSF)

MATCH #22 • Thursday, April 16 • 7 p.m. PT
Galen Center • Los Angeles, Calif.
TV/STREAM: B1G+ (Kasey Kazliner, Avi Singh, & Lily Coleman)

MATCH #23 • Saturday, April 18 • 6 p.m. PT
Firestone Fieldhouse • Malibu, Calif.
TV/STREAM: B1G+

SERIES RECORD: USC trails, 45-79 (.363)
LAST MEETING: L 3-1 (April 26, 2025 • Malibu, Calif.)
STREAK: Lost 2 • LAST 10 MEETINGS: 2-8
OPPONENT WEBSITE: PepperdineWaves.com

FIRST SERVE (TL;DR)

USC is led by 11th-year head coach Jeff Nygaard, a three-time Olympian in indoor and beach volleyball and a two-time NCAA champion.
The Trojans are ranked sixth in the AVCA Coaches Poll; the program's 517th appearance in the national poll.
USC is 13-2 at Galen Center. Last year, USC won 11 home matches and will play in its home arena 16 times in 2026. In fact, the Trojans played in Southern California for all but two regular-season matches (at BYU, April 10-11).
The Trojans lead the MPSF in blocks (2.60 bps), digs (8.74 dps) and opponent hitting percentage (.224). USC is second in assists (12.00 aps) and kills (12.78 kps) and is third in hitting percentage (.348).
So. MB Parker Tomkinson was named Molten/MPSF Defensive Player of the Week this week; his second time in as many weeks and fourth of his career.
Sr. OH Dillon Klein ranks second in the MPSF for kills (4.12 kps, 3rd in the NCAA) and points (4.83 pps, 2nd NCAA). He has reached double-digit kills in 18 of 19 matches and has had six contests with 20 or more kills.
Redshirt So. MB Wesley Smith leads the MPSF in blocks (1.13 bps) which ranks seventh in the NCAA. So. MB Parker Tomkinson is second (1.12 bps).
Two Trojans rank in the top four of the MPSF for digs. Jr. S Caleb Blanchette is third with 1.81 dps and So. LIB Johnny Dykstra is fourth with 1.73 dps.
USC can still finish in first, second, or third, in the MPSF standings.

TOURNEY TIME: With just one week remaining in the regular season, nothing has been decided in the way of final standings or seedings for the MPSF tournament. A pair of USC wins could create either a three-way tie for first place in the MPSF or put the Trojans in a tie for second place at worst. A split with the Waves would lock USC into third place and a pair of losses could drop the Trojans into a third-place tie with BYU should the Cougars defeat UCLA twice.

LAST TIME OUT: The Trojans earned a road split with 10th-ranked BYU at Smith Fieldhouse in Provo, Utah. In USC's first match outside of Southern California this season, the Cougars took advantage of Trojan errors to end an eight-match win streak with a four-set win. A day later, USC turned in a far more efficient outing to claim a hard-fought five-set victory in the rematch. Dillon Klein led the Trojans with 16 kills in each match. Parker Tomkinson matched his career high with eight blocks in the first match and then had four more blocks in the second meeting to go with his first match in double-digit kills this season (10). Both matches had one set go to extra points. BYU claimed a 30-28 win in the third set of the first match while the Trojans came up with a 29-27 win in set two of the rematch.

POLL POSITION: The Trojans ranked No. 5 in the AVCA Preseason Poll. USC now ranks sixth in the April 13 poll for the Trojans' 517th time in the poll. Last season, USC reached fifth on Feb. 3 to mark their highest position since they were also ranked No. 5 in 2022 (April 18). On March 10, 2025, USC's spot at No. 5 marked the 200th time the Trojans had been ranked in the poll's top five; now 221 times. The Trojans reached the top three (March 24, 2025) for the first time in over 10 years and were previously ranked as high as third on Feb. 16, 2015.

EXTENDED: 11th-year head coach Jeff Nygaard had his contract extended through the 2028 season. He is the longest-tenured coach in program history and has collected 140 wins at USC. In 2025, he led the Trojans to their highest ranking in over a decade. He became the fourth winningest coach in school history and needs just two wins to match Jim McLaughlin (142) for third all-time. Bob Yoder (211 wins; 1982-89) and Bill Ferguson (150 wins; 2007-15) are USC's all-time leaders in career wins.

POW-WOW: Seven Trojans have won MPSF/Molten Player of the Week honors. OH Dillon Klein was named Offensive Player of the Week for the first USC award of 2026 on Feb. 2 and has since earned it two more times (Feb. 16, April 6) and been tabbed for weekly honors a total of eight times in his career. MB Parker Tomkinson was picked twice as a freshman in 2025 and joined Klein on April 6 in a Trojan sweep to bring home his third-career honor. He repeated for the honor on April 13 to make it four-career awards and ninetotal wins for USC players this spring. MB Wesley Smith was chosen for his second-career Defensive Player of the Week award on Feb. 9. LIB Brad Pan earned the Defensive Player of the Week award on Feb. 16; the first of his career. He was also chosen for the same honor as a freshman in 2024. On March 23, Johnny Dykstra (defensive) and Sterling Foley (offensive) swept the awards. Among others who have also won previously, S Caleb Blanchette was named for the defensive honor in 2025. USC has swept the weekly awards eight times since March 7, 2022.

READY-SET: The Trojans' 22-set win streak which began on March 12 and remained intact until a loss to Stanford on April 4 is the longest under head coach Jeff Nygaard and set a new school record, which had stood since 1991. USC's sweeps of Menlo (March 27-28) helped the Trojans reach 18 in a row, which eclipsed a run of 16 sets from March 10-31, 2012; the previous set-streak record during the rally-scoring era (since 2001). Including the sideout scoring era, the previous school record was 21 sets in a row in 1991.

1K DK: OH Dillon Klein has reached double-digit kills in 79 of 98 career matches including getting to the 20-kill mark 13 times. He recorded 1,000 career kills on April 17, 2025, in a match at UCLA and now has 1,350 career kills and counting.

UPPER CLASS: OH Dillon Klein ranks second in the MPSF for points per set (4.83 pps, 2nd in the NCAA) and kills per set at 4.12 kps (3rd in the NCAA). Through three completed matches, he was the NCAA leader in hitting percentage but is now fourth in the MPSF and is 12th in the nation at .378.

2K GOLD: S Caleb Blanchette crossed the 2,000-assist mark in his career in the Trojans' season opener against St. Thomas Aquinas (Jan. 10). He dished out 28 assists in a 3-0 win over the Spartans and is now up to 2,711-career assists. In 2025, he led the MPSF—ranked fourth in the NCAA—in assists (10.61 aps) and equaled his career-high (61) twice.

BLOCKHEADS: MB Wesley Smith and MB Parker Tomkinson are the top two blockers in the MPSF. Smith's 1.13 blocks per set leads the conference (7th, NCAA) while Tomkinson averages 1.12 blocks per set to rank second in the league.

JOHNNY ON THE SPOT: LIB Johnny Dykstra ranks fourth in the MPSF for digs (1.73 dps). As a freshman in 2025, he produced nine matches in double-digit digs and ranked 18th in the nation for digs, third best among the nation's freshmen. Dykstra logged his first two double-digit digs matches against UCLA this spring. He put up a career-high 19 digs in the first meeting between the crosstown rivals and is up to 12-career matches in double-digit digs.