MALIBU, Calif. — The #5 Pepperdine men's volleyball team continues life on the road this week, heading across the country to compete in the Uvaldo Acosta Memorial Tournament.
 
MATCH #7 — Friday (January 27) at The RAC in Fairfax, Va.: #5 Pepperdine (5-1) vs. NJIT (3-3) at 2 p.m. PT.
 
MATCH #8 — Saturday (January 28) at The RAC in Fairfax, Va.: #5 Pepperdine (5-1) vs. George Mason (0-4) at 2 p.m. PT.
 
WATCH/ONLINE — A stream will be available for the Waves' match against the tournament host on Saturday courtesy of ESPN+, while live stats will be available for both matches.  Links to broadcasts and live stats from the tournament can be found at PepperdineWaves.com.
 
FOLLOW — Follow the Waves on Facebook and Twitter, @PeppVolleyball, and follow the team on Instagram, @peppmvb.  Get all the most recent schedules, results and more on www.PepperdineWaves.com.
 
UP NEXT — After the week in Fairfax, the Waves will return to California for two matches against UC Santa Barbara, first at home on February 8 and then on the road on February 10.
 
LAST WEEK — Pepperdine went 1-1 last week, facing the first pair of ranked teams of the season.  The Waves fell in four sets to #4 Penn State before taking down #15 Lewis in four sets.  Against the Nittany Lions, Pepperdine posted 48 kills on a .279 success rate, while giving up 55 kills on a .400 clip.  Each side of the net accrued 28 digs, but the opposition had the edge eight to six in aces and 6.5 to 2.0 in blocks.  Jaylen Jasper led the squad with 21 kills, while Jacob Steele also hit for double figures with 10.  Bryce Dvorak amassed 40 assists and Trey Cole led the team with eight digs. 
 
In the win over the Flyers, the squad impressed with 64 kills on a .446 output, posting more kills than any other match this season.  Pepperdine led with 11 aces, tying the team season-high, while also leading 29 to 26 in digs. The Waves allowed 47 kills on a .303 to the opposition, while also facing a 9.0 to 6.0 deficit in blocks during the match.  Jasper led the squad once again, posting a season-high 23 kills on a .425 success rate, adding a team-high seven digs.  Joe Deluzio and Steele also hit for double digits with 15 and 10 kills respectively.  Deluzio did so on a .522 hitting percentage, while Steele led the team in aces with four and tying the team-high block effort with four alongside Akin Akinwumi.  Dvorak posted a season-best 52 assists, just three shy of his career high, while adding three aces and six digs. 
 
MPSF WEEKLY ACCLAIM — For the second-consecutive week, a Pepperdine player earned MPSF offensive weekly honors, as Jaylen Jasper garnered recognition.  The honor is Jasper's second since he's been at Pepperdine, though he also garnered three weekly awards of its kind when playing at Stanford from 2018-20.
 
Jasper led the Waves to a pair of wins last week, including a four-set victory over #15 Lewis.  He averaged 5.64 kills/set on an even more impressive .438 success rate, tabbing 62 kills and only 16 errors in 105 swings.  He hit for double-figure kills in every match this week and collected over 20 smashes twice.  Throughout his 11 sets played, he finished with 5.86 points/set with 64.5 total points.  
 
This season, Bryce Dvorak (1/16) and Jaylen Jasper (1/23) have tabbed offensive weekly nods.
 
WAVES IMPRESS IN THE STAT RANKINGS — After three weeks of action, the Waves lead the nation with 14.30 kills/set and 13.65 assists/set, while ranking third with .398 hitting percentage.  Jaylen Jasper leads the national in kills (5.26) and points (5.82), while ranking fourth in attacks (8.95) and 12th in hitting percentage (.429).  Bryce Dvorak also ranks second in assists/set (11.89) and 13th in aces (0.63) and Trey Cole ranks 13th in digs/set (2.26). 
 
OPPONENTS — NJIT has gone 3-3 overall this season, beating Purdue Fort Wayne, Sacred Heart and St. Francis Brooklyn and falling to Loyola-Chicago, Lindenwood and McKendree.  This is the first meeting between Pepperdine and NJIT all-time.
 
George Mason has lost four matches this season after getting swept by Grand Canyon and Long Beach State and losing in four to Ohio State and Long Island University.  Pepperdine leads the Patriots all-time 11-1, having only lost once in four during the 2020 season.  From 1984 to 2019, the Waves won 10-straight, including eight by way of sweep.  In 2022, Pepperdine swept George Mason in Firestone.
 
RANKINGS — After the first three weeks of competition, Pepperdine remained at the #5 spot in the AVCA national rankings.  The Waves opened the 2023 season on January 3 at #5 in the AVCA national rankings as well. 
 
Pepperdine, along with Long Beach State and UCLA, are the only three schools to have been ranked in the top-15 of every single national poll since the polls began in 1986.  Hawai'i is the next closest, having been ranked 554 total times.  Pepperdine is second on the list for school ranked most in the top-five with 358 top-five rankings, while UCLA tops the list with 394 top-five rankings.