No. 4 USC Men's Volleyball Takes on No. 14 Stanford

Friday, April 3

Los Angeles, Calif.

7:00 p.m. PT

USC

Stanford

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USC men's volleyball middle blocker Parker Tomkinson goes up to attack a quick-set ball from Ryan Sprague during a match against Menlo at Galen Center.

Photo by: Kevin Kim

No. 4 USC Men's Volleyball Takes on No. 14 Stanford

March 31, 2026 | Men's Volleyball

#USCMVB Notebook (March 31)2026 USC Schedule Buy Tickets

The Trojans have won six straight matches and 18 consecutive sets

LOS ANGELES – No. 4 USC (14-3, 6-2 MPSF) rides six straight wins into meetings with No. 14 Stanford (9-10, 6-2) at Galen Center this weekend. The Trojans will put an 18-set win streak on the line when USC and the Cardinal clash on Friday (April 3) at 7 p.m. PT. The teams will get together for a rematch on Saturday (April 4) at 5 p.m. Both contests will be shown live on Big Ten Plus streams.

THIS WEEK
Galen Center • Los Angeles, Calif.
No. 4 USC (14-3, 6-2 MPSF) vs. No. 14 Stanford (9-10, 6-2 MPSF)

MATCH #18 • Friday, April 3 • 7 p.m. PT
TV/STREAM: B1G+ (PxP Liam Irvin, Color Analyst Makena Arteaga, and Sideline Nia Satterfield Brown)

MATCH #19 • Saturday, April 4 • 5 p.m. PT
TV/STREAM: B1G+ (PxP Avi Singh, Color Analyst Makena Arteaga, and Sideline Liam Irvin)

SERIES RECORD: USC leads, 73-41 (.640)
LAST MEETING: W 3-1 (April 25, 2025 • Malibu, Calif.)
STREAK: Won 1 • LAST 10 MEETINGS: 3-7
OPPONENT WEBSITE: GoStanford.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 515th appearance in the national poll.
USC is 11-2 at Galen Center. Last year, USC won 11 home matches and will play in its home arena 16 times in 2026. In fact, the Trojans play in Southern California for all but two regular-season matches (at BYU, April 10-11).
The 18-set win streak USC is on is the longest under Nygaard and the second longest set streak in program history. Only 21 straight wins in 1991 is longer.
The Trojans lead the MPSF in blocks (2.60 bps), digs (9.05 dps) and opponent hitting percentage (.206). USC is second in assists (12.03 aps) and kills (12.84 kps) and is third in hitting percentage (.358).
Sr. OH Dillon Klein ranks second in the nation and in the MPSF for kills (4.10 kps) and is third nationally in points (4.82 pps). He has reached double-digit kills in 14 of 16 matches and has had five contests with 20 or more kills.
Redshirt So. MB Wesley Smith leads the MPSF in blocks (1.26 bps) which ranks fourth in the NCAA. He has had a block in every match including season highs of eight blocks in two outings.
Both of USC's outside hitters rank in the MPSF's top 10 for hitting percentage. Klein is second at .378 and So. Sterling Foley is 10th at .326.
Two Trojans rank in the top four of the MPSF for digs. So. LIB Johnny Dykstra is third with 1.84 dps and Jr. S Caleb Blanchette is fourth at 1.72 dps.

LAST TIME OUT: The Trojans recorded a pair of 3-0 sweeps over Menlo to extend their win streak to six matches and 18 consecutive sets. The set streak is the longest under head coach Jeff Nygaard and the second longest in school history only to a 21-set win streak during the 1991 season. Cooper Keane led all players with 13 kills and totaled 16.0 points in the teams' first meeting. USC hit .448 over the Oaks' .039 and out-served Menlo with an 8-1 edge in aces. In the rematch, Dillon Klein led with 10 kills while Christian Connell had nine and Noah Roberts added eight. Ryan Sprague got the start and recorded his second-career double-double with 31 assists and a match-high 12 digs. USC hit .312 and put together its eighth match in double-digit blocks (12.0-1.5).

POLL POSITION: The Trojans ranked No. 5 in the AVCA Preseason Poll. USC now ranks fourth in the March 30 poll for the Trojans' 515th 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 220 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 137 wins at USC. In 2025, he led the Trojans to their highest ranking in over a decade. He is one win from tying Ernie Hix (138) for fourth all-time in school history and needs six wins to match Jim McLaughlin (142) for third all-time. Bob Yoder (211 wins; 1982-89) and Bill Ferguson (150 wins; 2007-15) are USC's all-time leaders in career wins.

READY-SET: The Trojans' 18-set win streak which began on March 12 is the longest under head coach Jeff Nygaard. USC's sweeps of Menlo (March 27-28) helped the Trojans eclipse the only longer streak in the rally-scoring era (since 2001) which occurred in 2012 when USC won 16 consecutive sets from March 10-31. The only set streak longer than USC's active 18-set win streak happened during the sideout scoring era and reached 21 in 1991.

1K DK: OH Dillon Klein has reached double-digit kills in 75 of 94 career matches including the 20-kill mark 12 times. He recorded 1,000 career kills on April 17, 2025, in a match at UCLA and now has 1,283 career kills and counting.

UPPER CLASS: Through 17 matches, OH Dillon Klein ranks second in the MPSF for points per set (4.82 pps, 2nd in the NCAA) and kills per set at 4.10 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 13th in the nation at .378.

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 2,546-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 1.26 blocks per set leads the conference (4th in the NCAA) while Tomkinson averages 0.97 blocks per set but is not ranked due to minimum sets played for individual statistical rankings.

JOHNNY ON THE SPOT: LIB Johnny Dykstra ranks third in the MPSF for digs (1.84 dps). As a freshman, 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.