MALIBU, Calif. — The #10 Pepperdine men's volleyball team is back on the road this week, this time heading to the Carolinas to take on Belmont Abbey College and North Greenville.

MATCH #18 — Thursday (March 7) at Wheeler Center in Belmont, N.C.: #10 Pepperdine (12-5) at Belmont Abbey (11-2) at 3 p.m. PT | Coastal Carolinas Digital Network

MATCH #19 — Friday (March 8) at Hayes Gymnasium in Tigerville, S.C.: #10 Pepperdine (12-5) at North Greenville (7-5) at 4 p.m. PT | Coastal Carolinas Digital Network

COVERAGE — The matches this week will be streamed on the Coastal Carolinas Digital Network and have live stats available.  All home matches will stream on ESPN+ and have live scoring available.  Links can be found at PepperdineWaves.com.

UP NEXT — Next week, the Waves will host USC and Concordia in Firestone Fieldhouse on Thursday and Saturday. 

FOLLOW — Follow the Waves on Facebook and X, @PeppVolleyball, and follow the team on Instagram and TikTok, @peppmvb.  Get all the most recent schedules, results and more on www.PepperdineWaves.com.

LAST WEEK — The Waves went 2-0 on the road last week, downing both #16 CSUN and CUI - a team receiving votes in the AVCA coaches poll, after five-set brawls.  First, the Waves split with the Matadors 25-19, 20-25, 25-22, 17-25 to enter a fifth.  Despite starting down, Pepperdine rallied to win the match 15-12.  The Waves out-attacked the opposition with 57 kills on a .278 success rate, compared to 53 kills on a .256 output.  Though CSUN tabbed an 8-1 lead in aces and 12.0-9.0 in blocks, Pepperdine led 38-33 in digs.  Cole Ketrzynski and Cole Rasic led the offensive efforts with 13 and 12 kills respectively.  Trey Cole had a team-high 12 digs, while Ryan Barnett led with six blocks.  Tyler Stewart produced 46 assists.

Then in the following win over CUI, Pepperdine rallied from 20-25, 25-22, 20-25 scores to win the fourth 25-20 and force a fifth.  The team had the edge through a majority of the fifth set, winning 15-12.  The Waves led with 62 kills on a .321 clip, while allowing the Golden Eagles 58 kills on a .229 output.  The squad also posted 17.5 blocks, the most by any MPSF team for any game this season, while giving up 12.5 to the opposition.  Pepperdine also led 47-41 in digs, while CUI had the slight 6-5 edge at the service line.  Ketrzynski led the Waves yet again, this time with the first double-double of the season after amassing 20 kills and 10 digs.  Martin de Chavarria had a team-high 10 blocks to tie his career-high, while Ryan Graves led the team with 47 assists.

MPSF WEEKLY NOD — For the second-consecutive week, Pepperdine has had a player garner MPSF weekly honors, with Ryan Barnett kicking things off this season with an offensive nod last week and Martin de Chavarria continuing the trend with a defensive award this week. 

To tab the honor this week, de Chavarria averaged 1.50 blocks with 15 through 10 sets of action.

He produced a career-high 10 blocks in the win over CUI, matching the league's single-match block high and leading Pepperdine to a MPSF season-high of 17.5 team blocks.  He had another five at the Matadome earlier in the week, while producing seven kills on 11 errorless swings for a .636 success rate.

SQUAD — The Waves have gone 12-5 to start the campaign this season and have won seven of those matches in straight sets.  As a team, Pepperdine produces 12.16 kills on a .314 clip, while adding 11.57 assists, 1.28 aces, 8.75 digs and 2.51 blocks.  The squad gives up only 10.49 kills on a .211 output on average, along with 1.18 aces, 7.79 digs and 2.04 blocks.

Cole Ketrzynski leads the attack output for the Waves with 3.50 kills/set and 182 total kills.  Ryan Barnett has also put in a solid presence on the attack front with 2.43 kills/set and 119 kills, while having the best hitting percentage (.338) in the league currently this season.

Ethan Watson and Martin de Chavarria lead the squad at the net with 1.58 and 1.29 blocks/set respectively.  De Chavarria has produced 71 blocks, with eight solo rejections in 55 sets, while Watson has amassed 52 blocks with nine solo jobs in 33 sets played.  Ketrzynski also leads the team with 14 aces and 0.27 aces/set so far this season, while Cole Rasic has reached double-figure ace territory with 10 so far this season (0.20). 

Trey Cole has marked a team-best 2.10 digs/set, tallying 122 digs this season.  Tyler Stewart and Ryan Graves have seen the most time in playmaking duties, having put up 8.22 and 6.41 assists/set respectively.

OPPONENTS — Belmont Abbey has collected an 11-2 overall record this season.  The Crusaders are currently on a seven-match winning streak with four-set wins over Lees-McRae and North Greenville and a five-set win over Erskine most recently.

North Greenville has gone 7-5 overall this season.  Most recently, the team split with a four-set win over Emmanuel and a four-set loss at Belmont Abbey last week.  Pepperdine has faced North Greenville twice prior to this season, winning both in 2015 with straight-set wins on the road.

RANKINGS — Pepperdine is ranked #10 in the AVCA national poll this week.  After three-consecutive weeks at #10, the squad had dropped to #12, though a pair of wins against UCSB and an upset dub over #6 Stanford moved the Waves up once more to #10 and remained there for the second-consecutive week.  The Waves began the season at #13.

In addition to the team ranking, the Waves have been making quite the splash on the team and individual stat rankings in this early season. The Waves rank second in the MPSF in opponent hitting percentage (.211) and team attacks (26.08), and third in kills (12.16), digs (8.75), blocks (2.51) and assists (11.57).  The squad is also top-13 nationally in seven categories, including sixth in blocks, 10th in opponent hitting percentage, 11th in assists (11.57) and 12th hitting percentage (.314).

Martin de Chavarria is first in the MPSF and ranks third nationally with 1.29 blocks. Trey Cole also leads the league and ranks 13th nationally with 2.10 digs.  Cole Ketrzynski ranks nationally in six separate categories, including 19th with 3.50 kills, 21st with 4.11 points and 22nd in attacks (7.67) - all categories he ranks second in the league in as well. Ryan Barnett leads the MPSF and ranks 16th nationally in hitting percentage (.338).