TMU Men's Volleyball hopes to continue upward trajectory in 2022

TMU Men’s Volleyball Head Coach Jared Goldberg has transformed the Mustang program in his short time at the helm.

In his first season in 2021, he led Master’s to its first two Golden State Athletic Conference wins in program history and coached the team’s first-ever All-GSAC selection. Heading into 2022, Goldberg has led the Mustangs to another program first – receiving votes in the preseason national rankings.

With the return of most starters from last season, coupled with some talented additions, there is no question the trajectory is up for TMU Men’s Volleyball. Entering the 2022 season, Goldberg is focused on keeping the program going in the right direction.

“A successful season for our program would be one of continued growth and improvement,” Goldberg said. “We are looking for that growth on the court, in the classroom and in the team’s spiritual walk as well.

“If our program can continue this growth in all these areas, we will finish the season looking back on it as a success.”

Helping that growth take place was a more normal offseason. Goldberg began his tenure in February 2021, just a week before the season started. Entering his second year as head coach, he had a full offseason to work with his players.

“Compared to coming in last year the week before season, this school year has been entirely different with time to really work with the team leading up into season,” Goldberg said. “The helpful part was it really gave us the time to develop a new system.

“Last year when I came in, I didn’t want to change a ton of things right from the start, but having the offseason really gave us the time to go through the ups and downs of experimenting with different systems.”

With a new system in place, Goldberg is hopeful that that will translate into on-court success.

“I think the goals for every year are to just keep improving and be better than the year before,” Goldberg said. “We have some high expectations for this group which is a major factor as to why we have a very challenging schedule this year.

“I’m certain that we have a better volleyball team this year, but we will certainly be challenged with the level of competition we are playing as well.”

Key Returners

TMU returns junior outside hitter Brandon Botdorf, who has led the Mustangs in kills in each of the last two seasons and earned All-GSAC honors a season ago. Master’s also brings back senior outside hitter Wyatt Bates, who has ranked second and third on the team in kills the last two campaigns.

“We have six of our seven starters from last year’s squad returning for us this year,” Goldberg said. “Among that group, we have All-GSAC selection outside in Brandon Botdorf along with two-year starter Wyatt Bates expected to make impactful contributions.”

Graduate students Brett Norkus (middle blocker) and Ben Herb (outside hitter) are expected to also contribute significantly. Norkus will anchor the Mustang defense after leading TMU in blocks the past two seasons, while Herb ranked second on the team last year in kills, digs, blocks and service aces.

Newcomers

Master’s welcomes nine new players to the team this season, with Goldberg expecting a few to see significant playing time.

TMU’s most highly-touted newcomer is Diego Perez, a transfer from Pepperdine University, where he was selected to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) All-Freshman Team in 2020. The versatile former NCAA Division I player will play either libero or outside hitter.

Johnny Buchanan, a local setter out of West Ranch High School, is expected to start at setter. While at West Ranch, he won two Foothill League titles, while also earning league player of the year and All-CIF First Team honors.

Will Avera, a transfer middle blocker, is also projected to make an impact after captaining the Fresno State University club team to a No. 10 national ranking.

Another notable newcomer is Brock Gardner, a former NAIA All-American for TMU Men’s Basketball in 2019-20. After playing professional basketball overseas, he has returned to Master’s to finish up his degree while his wife, Tristen Gardner, fulfills her final season of women’s basketball eligibility as a graduate student herself.

Brock Gardner played three years of club volleyball before focusing on basketball in college.

“I’m excited to see what kind of impact Brock will have with our team this year,” Goldberg said. “With so many new faces on our team this year, Brock will be able to bring in his experience and competitiveness as an athlete. I hope he can continue to help build a culture of professionalism in the way we seek faithfulness to our calling as Christians to pursue excellence in everything we do.

“At this point, I don’t think Brock has touched a volleyball much the past six years, so I’m looking forward to seeing how his athleticism transfers over sports onto the volleyball court.”

Schedule

TMU has scheduled a tough list of opponents this season, with the Mustangs set to play 10 matches against teams ranked in the top-15 of the NAIA Preseason Coaches’ Poll and another three against squads receiving votes.

“This year we have challenges in front of us both in and out of conference,” Goldberg said. “We have 10 matches this year against teams ranked in the top-15 NAIA nationally. Within those, six of the 10 are played at home. Along with those challenges, we compete against two NCAA teams in Concordia University Irvine and sixth-ranked Grand Canyon University.”

After tying for second in the GSAC East Division a season ago, Master’s was picked to finish fourth in the conference this year out of six teams.

“The GSAC will certainly be a very competitive conference this year,” Goldberg said. “With Menlo back in action after being off last year, our conference has two teams (Menlo and Vanguard) ranked nationally in the top-10 along with OUAZ being right in there as a top-15 team.

“As the preseason coaches’ poll came out the other day and had us right behind those three teams, we absolutely have our work cut out for us to break into some national rankings after receiving top-15 votes in the initial rankings.”

Master’s begins its non-conference schedule on Monday with a 7 p.m. home match against Westcliff University.

After a stretch of 11 non-conference matches over the next month to begin the season, the Mustangs are scheduled to open up conference play on Feb. 18 against Arizona Christian University.

TMU will hope to qualify for the GSAC Championships April 1-2 as one of the conference’s top-four teams, with a chance of playing in the NAIA Championships (April 12-16) on the line.