No. 4 USC Men's Volleyball Welcomes Oaks to Galen Center

Friday, March 27

Los Angeles, Calif.

7:00 p.m. PT

USC

Menlo

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USC men's volleyball opposite hitter Cooper Keane celebrates a point with Dillon Klein during a match against Penn State at Galen Center

Photo by: Katie Chin

No. 4 USC Men's Volleyball Welcomes Oaks to Galen Center

March 23, 2026 | Men's Volleyball

#USCMVB Notebook (March 23)2026 USC Schedule Buy Tickets

The Trojans take on Menlo as conference foes for the first time

LOS ANGELES – No. 4 USC (12-3, 4-2 MPSF) looks to extend its four-match and 12-set win streak when Menlo (3-11, 2-3) visits Galen Center for back-to-back matches this week. The Trojans and the Oaks meet for the first time as conference foes on Friday (March 27) at 7 p.m. PT and then face each other again on Saturday (March 28) at 5 p.m. Both matches will be shown live on Big Ten Plus streams.

THIS WEEK
Galen Center • Los Angeles, Calif.
No. 4 USC (12-3, 4-2 MPSF) vs. Menlo (3-11, 2-3 MPSF)

MATCH #16 • Friday, March 27 • 7 p.m. PT
TV/STREAM: B1G+ (PxP Liam Irvin, Analyst Lily Coleman, and Sideline Makena Arteaga)

MATCH #17 • Saturday, March 28 • 5 p.m. PT
TV/STREAM: B1G+ (PxP Avi Singh, Analyst Makena Arteaga, and Sideline Aidan Pham)

SERIES RECORD: USC leads, 2-0 (1.000)
LAST MEETING: W 3-1 (March 3, 2023 • Galen Center)
STREAK: Won 2 • LAST 10 MEETINGS: 2-0
OPPONENT WEBSITE: MenloAthletics.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 fourth in the AVCA Coaches Poll; the program's 514th appearance in the national poll.
USC and Menlo will meet for the first time as fellow members of the MPSF. The team's previous two meetings were in nonconference contests.
The Trojans are 9-2 at Galen Center. Last year, USC won 11 home matches and will play 16 times at home in 2026. In fact, the Trojans play in Southern California for all but two regular-season matches (at BYU, April 10-11).
So. LIB Johnny Dykstra and So. OH Sterling Foley were each chosen for their second-career Molten/MPSF Player of the Week awards this week. The two were also chosen once each as freshmen in 2025.
USC leads the MPSF in blocks (2.54 bps), digs (8.93 dps) and opponent hitting percentage (.223). The Trojans are second in assists (12.05 aps) and kills (12.86 kps) and third in hitting percentage (.357).
Sr. OH Dillon Klein ranks second in the nation for kills (4.21 kps) and points (4.86 pps). He has reached double-digit kills in 13 of 14 matches and has had five matches with 20 or more kills.
Redshirt So. MB Wesley Smith leads the MPSF in blocks (1.21 bps) which ranks fourth in the NCAA. He has had a block in every match including season highs of eight blocks in two matches.
Menlo Gr. setter Joshua Friedman played two seasons at USC (2024-25).

LAST TIME OUT: The Trojans recorded a pair of 3-0 sweeps over Jessup to extend to a four-match win streak with 12 consecutive sets won. USC hit .462 in the second meeting and .361 in the two matches combined and held the Warriors to a -.098 hitting percentage in the first contest for the lowest total by an opponent this spring and Jessup's lowest hitting output this season. Dillon Klein played just the first match and racked up 10 kills and 11.5 points. Johnny Dykstra had 10 digs in the first meeting and six in the second to average 2.67 digs per set. Sterling Foley hit .515 in the two matches and had nine kills in each outing to total 18 kills with just one error on 33 attacks. Christian Connell led the way in the second match with a season-high 14 kills and .542 hitting to go with eight digs.

POLL POSITION: The Trojans ranked No. 5 in the AVCA Preseason Poll. USC now ranks fourth in the March 23 poll for the Trojans' 514th 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 219 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 135 wins at USC. In 2025, he led the Trojans to their highest ranking in over a decade.

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 been tabbed for weekly honors seven times in his career. He was chosen for offensive and defensive honors a total of three times in 2025. 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 won awards last season are MB Parker Tomkinson (twice) and S Caleb Blanchette. Klein has collected seven-career weekly honors; five offensive and one defensive. USC has swept the weekly awards seventimes since March 7, 2022.

READY-SET: The Trojans' 12-set win streak which began on March 12 matches two such streaks from a season ago. The only longer streak in the rally-scoring era (since 2001) occurred in 2012 when USC won 16 consecutive sets from March 10-31. The only two set streaks longer than that happened during the sideout scoring era and reached 17 in 1994 and 21 in 1991.

FAMILIAR FACE: Menlo Gr. setter Joshua Friedman returns to Galen Center this weekend. The Orange County native spent two seasons in the Cardinal and Gold (2024-25) and appeared in 31 matches for USC. In his best match as a Trojan, he put up 27 assists and 12 digs for the double-double and added a kill and three blocks at Stanford on April 13, 2024. He leads the Oaks in assists (7.74 aps) and has played in 12 matches.

1K DK: OH Dillon Klein has reached double-digit kills in 74 of 92 career matches and reached the 20-kill mark 12 times. He reached 1,000 career kills on April 17, 2025, in a match at UCLA and now has 1,268 career kills and counting.

UPPER CLASS: Through 15 matches, OH Dillon Klein ranks second in the MPSF for points per set (4.86 pps, 2nd in the NCAA) and kills per set at 4.21 kps (2nd in the NCAA). Through three matches he was the NCAA leader in hitting percentage but is now second in the MPSF and is 12th in the nation at .380.

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 2,529-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 among the top blockers in the MPSF. Smith's 1.21 blocks per set leads the conference (4th in the NCAA) while Tomkinson averages 0.94 blocks per set but is not ranked due to minimum sets played for individual statistical rankings.

JOHNNY ON THE SPOT: LIB Johnny Dykstra led the MPSF in digs with 2.24 dps 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.