Gianluca Grasso Named AVCA National Player Of The Week

Gianluca Grasso

/ Men's Volleyball

Gianluca Grasso Named AVCA National Player Of The Week

April 17, 2018 | Men's Volleyball, Features

USC junior outside hitter Gianluca Grasso was named the Sports Import/AVCA Men's Division I-II National Player of the Week for his spectacular performance in USC's stunning upset at Pepperdine in last Saturday's (April 14) Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament quarterfinals.

Grasso also earned Volleyball Mob National Player of the Week honorable mention notice today.

Grasso hit a match-best and personal season-high .607 against the Waves, getting 19 kills with just 2 errors on 28 attempts. The Brazil native also had 7 digs, 3 blocks and 2 aces as the unranked Trojans posted a 4-set road victory over No. 5 Pepperdine, the first time since 2011 that a No. 6 seed beat a third seed in the MPSF tourney.

This is the 16^th time that a Trojan has earned AVCA Player of the Week honors, but the first since 2014 (Tanner Jansen).

USC travels to BYU on Thursday (April 19) to take on No. 4 BYU, the MPSF tourney's top seed, in a semifinal match.