MALIBU, California – David Hunt and the Pepperdine men's volleyball program announced the 2022 schedule today. The Waves will be seeking to get back to the NCAA Championships for the third straight time.
 
Pepperdine will play 14 home matches and 14 road matches beginning in early January. It's a return to normalcy after only playing Mountain Pacific Sports Federation matches in the regular season this past spring.
 
"We get back to non-conference play by going to some places we haven't visited before," said Hunt, who is going into his fifth season as head coach. "We start the year by playing two Conference Carolina powerhouses in a four-match stretch. Additionally, we play MIVA champ Lewis and Big West champ UC Santa Barbara. With a majority of our team returning, we wanted to challenge ourselves with a competitive slate of 28 matches."
 
The Waves will have five matches against teams that also competed at the 2021 NCAA Championships. National runner-up BYU will visit Firestone Fieldhouse for two Mountain Pacific Sports Federation matches on March 25-26. UC Santa Barbara ended Pepperdine's season in the opening round, and the two schools will play on both January 21 (home) and February 4 (away). Another national semifinalist, Lewis, will come to Malibu on January 28.
 
Pepperdine's 2022 season begins with four matches in four nights in North Carolina aqainst Mount Olive and Barton (Jan. 5-8).
 
In addition to UCSB, the schedule features non-conference home-and-homes with UC Irvine and CSUN.
 
Home matches: Jan. 14 vs. Erskine, Jan. 17 vs. Princeton, Jan. 21 vs. UC Santa Barbara, Jan. 28 vs. Lewis, Feb. 9 vs. UC Irvine, Feb. 23 vs. USC, March 11 vs. George Mason, March 16 vs. CSUN, March 25-26 vs. BYU, April 2 vs. Concordia, April 7 vs. UCLA, April 14 and 16 vs. Stanford.
 
Road matches: Jan. 5-6 at Mount Olive, Jan. 7-8 at Barton, Feb. 4 at UC Santa Barbara, Feb. 11 at UC Irvine, Feb. 18 and 20 at Grand Canyon, Feb. 25 at USC, March 4-5 at McKendree, March 18 at CSUN, March 31 at Concordia, April 9 at UCLA.
 
Pepperdine concluded the 2021 season ranked #5 in the country. The Waves went 13-7 overall, finished third in the MPSF regular season, was the runner-up at the MPSF Tournament and competed in the opening rounds of the NCAA Championships. The Waves played in the semifinals of the 2019 NCAA Championships, while the 2020 postseason was canceled at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.