No. 11 Pepperdine Men’s Volleyball swept the Lincoln Memorial Railsplitters 3-0 Jan. 14, at Firestone Fieldhouse. The Waves are now 4-0 to start the 2024 season.
After a victory against LIU the previous night, Pepperdine beat Lincoln Memorial to win two consecutive matches. Redshirt sophomore outside hitter Ryan Barnett led the charge on offense, followed by graduate outside/opposite hitter Cole Ketrynski, graduate middle blocker Marti De Chavarria and freshman outside hitter Ilay Haver with 12, 11, 4 and 4 kills, respectively.
“What the Lincoln Memorial coach told me — we played them also last year around this time — is just how much tougher the team is this year,” Head Coach Jonathan Winder said. “The team’s a lot more resilient and competitive.”
Both teams started the match keeping it close as they went point for point. That was until, with an 8-7 score, Pepperdine went on a 10-4 run to take an 18-11 lead. This run was fueled by kills from Ketrynski, De Chavarria and Barnett, three errors by LMU and a service ace by graduate outside hitter Alex Mrkalji.
With a score of 24-14, De Chavarria went up for a block that landed on LMU’s side of the court to win the first set for Pepperdine.
“He’s [De Chavarria] had a good match every game he’s played,” Winder said. “He’s blocking everything and killing a bunch of balls.”
Much like the first set, both teams started battling point for point, until Pepperdine went on an 8-2 run to pull away and win the set 25-16. Winder said Pepperdine took control of the first two sets by stepping up their serving and defense.
“We did a good job defensively, and we served pretty aggressively,” Winder said. “We missed some serves, but they were out of system or not in rhythm the whole night. The guys did a great job of blocking and then digging around it.”
Unlike the previous two sets, the Waves jumped out in front at the start of the third set, taking a 5-1 lead. After this start, the Waves didn’t look back as they continued their tough serving and defense throughout the set.
“We started hot,” Barnett said. “We wanted to get out on the third set on a good note. To serve well, serve on the court and keep doing our defense’s job.”
Despite the Railsplitters keeping up with the Waves toward the end of the set, Barnett got a kill to win the set and secure the sweep for Pepperdine.
The Waves’ next two matches will be against McKendree University on Jan. 19, and Jan. 20, both at Firestone.
“The guys are buzzing to get back in the gym, gear up, watch a bunch of film and get set to go for that game,” Ketrynski said.
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