Men's Volleyball Moves to 3-0 Winning Home Opener

The Master's University men's volleyball team used 10 service aces and 36 kills to get past the UC Merced Bobcats in three sets Friday night in the MacArthur Center.

The No. 11-ranked Mustangs hit .352 as a team while holding the Bobcats to .115. And while TMU won each set 25-19, 25-15, 25-20, it was not as easy as the score might indicate.

"The first set was not very sharp," said Head Coach Jared Goldberg. "We know that we can set a high ball and Nolan can get a kill, but we need to develop some other parts of our offense. Tonight we tried that, and we definitely need to clean that up. But, a win is a win and I will take it. UC Merced is a good team that received votes (for the NAIA Top 15). So I will definitely take it."

The Master's (3-0) jumped out to a 7-0 lead at the start of the first set, only to see the Bobcats claw their way back to within two at 15-13. But TMU scored the next four points to take the l;ead back to six and UCM just could not overcome that.

The second set was similar to the first in that TMU rattled off seven straight points early on to take a 12-4 lead. The lead got to as much as 11 before The Master's settled for the 25-15 set win.

The third was set to a different tone as the Bobcats grabbed the early lead 8-6. Again, another five-point run opened it up for the Mustangs. And while UC Merced would get to within two later in the set, TMU would score five of the final seven points to close out their third win of the season.

"We were trying to get more balls to the middles," Goldberg said. "We only had three sets to the middles in the first set, but we got another ten in the second. Our middles (Will Avera and Brett Norkus) did a good job. They were available and efficient with the opportunities they had."

The Mustangs serving was particularly impressive, getting 10 aces while giving up only two. In the first three matches of the year, The Master's has 25 service aces, which is 2.78 per set. It's still early in the season, but TMU ranks fifth in the country.

Nolan Flexen, chosen as the NAIA Attacker of the Week on Monday for his performance in the wins last weekend over No. 1 Grand View (IA) and No. 5 William Penn (IA), had five service aces and a team-high 10 kills. Avera, Norkus and Isaac Seltzer each had seven kills, while Matthew Hamm, the NAIA Setter of the Week, had 33 assists.

But as Coach Goldberg pointed out, it's going to be a total team effort if this squad will be a championship contender.

"We are going to need everyone firing by the end of the year to reach the goals we want to reach as a team," he said.

Saturday The Master's hosts Stanford, currently ranked No. 6 in the NCAA Division men's volleyball poll, for a 1 p.m. match at The MacArthur Center. Advanced tickets are still available at https://gomustangs.com/sports/2021/10/9/tickets.aspx.