NCAA volleyball: USC beats Ball St. in First Point Challenge
Ball State’s Wil McPhillips is all over USC’s Kyle Paulson/Scott Clouse photo
AUSTIN, Texas — One of the pillars of First Point Volleyball Foundation is introducing the best collegiate players to youth players. The annual First Point Collegiate Challenge serves as the centerpiece for that endeavor, and fans in attendance for the event’s opening match Friday were treated to two players on both ends of the spectrum: One an established All-American, and one a freshman who has the makings of a future superstar.
No. 13 USC of the MPSF won 21-25, 25-23, 25-19, 25-21 and raised its record to 5-0 by defeating No. 14 Ball State (7-3) of the MIVA behind Wes Smith, 6-foot-10 freshman middle from Encinitas, California, who has the physique of a strong safety.
Ball State had some good news despite the loss, the return of 6-6 junior outside hitter Tinaishe Ndvazocheva. The native of Zimbabwe and 2023 honorable-mention AVCA All-American missed the Cardinals’ first nine matches for undisclosed reasons.
Saturday in the Austin Convention Center, Ohio State plays USC at 1:30 Central, Stanford plays Ball State at 4 and UCLA plays Penn State at 6:30.
Smith, the cornerstone of a highly touted USC freshman class, had 13 kills, hitting .579, and four blocks and a dig. Fellow freshman Caleb Blanchette, a 6-5 setter from Brentwood, Tennesssee, dished out 38 assists and had two blocks and three digs.
Ninth-year USC coach Jeff Nygaard said Smith shows something different every time he steps on the court.
“He’s obviously a big, physical presence,” Nygaard said. “He’s somebody that the other team has to pay attention to. If our ball control puts us in a situation where we can use him, other teams’ block has to pay attention to him.
“ … But now he’s adding relentless defensive effort. He’s digging balls, he’s playing balls out of the net, he’s point-scoring from the service line. He’s learning and adding volleyball value at every turn. He just continues to get better and better every day.”
And, to be sure, Smith has plenty of help. The Trojans hit a tidy .317, and a variety of players got in on the fun. Sophomore outside hitter Dillon Klein had 11 kills, an assist, an ace, seven digs and three blocks. Senior middle Kyle Paulson contributed nine kills and eight blocks, one solo, and junior opposite Jack Deuchar also had nine kills, three blocks and seven digs.
USC held a 15-9 blocks advantage.
“We got some heat from the middle,” he said. “We were able to find them, and they got the job done for us, and I loved that part of the game.”
What Nygaard didn’t love was the first set. Ball State, the Trojans’ toughest opponent to date, got ahead by as many as five in the first set, and though USC rallied to tie the score at 20-20, The Cardinals took five of the final six points.
USC recovered after that, and Nygaard was pleased that his team got stronger as the match wore on.
“I thought their (Ball State’s) game, the style they played was something we were not prepared for or we had to adapt to,” Nygaard said. “We had to make some blocking adjustments, which our guys responded to, executed at a high level and we played some gritty volleyball.
“It gives us confidence that we can see a team that we might not know everything they do or we can go in and just have an open mind and then really narrow into, ‘Oh, this is what they’re trying to do.’ Gaining confidence that the coaches can make game-time decisions and the guys can go out there and know what to do in real time and read and react to the game, that’s a real nice thing to have.”
USC might have been the winner, but Ndavazocheva was the star of the show, getting 23 kills (hitting .326) to go with all six of Ball State’s aces, two blocks and five digs. He finished off USC in the first set with kills on two of the final three points, then helped the Cardinals get back into the third set with three consecutive aces to shrink a four-point deficit to 18-17.
“I think he opens up the court a lot,” coach Donan Cruz said. “I thought USC did a good job kind of starting to key on him in the second part of the match. But he’s so dynamic that you can get him balls in different situations, and he does a good job scoring.”
Said Ndavazocheva: “(My game) has improved a lot … In the USA, they are so good at teaching skills. My coach, Donan, is so good at being specific with skill: hip movements, chin movements in passing. I didn’t know anything about that. So I can say the skill aspect has really improved.”
Sophomore outside hitter Patrick Rogers contributed 11 kills, but 10 errors, an assist, a block and eight digs.
“We struggled to make good plays at the right time,” Cruz said. “Small, little errors in set two that I thought could have changed the whole momentum, and if we win set 2, maybe we’re out of there in three.
“Instead, we give USC a chance to kind of build some momentum. And kudos to them. They kind of rode that wave of momentum and didn’t look back.”
Still, Cruz saw a lot that encouraged him, and he hopes more of those traits show up in Saturday’s match against Stanford.
“Even with that, which I would maybe grade our volleyball a ‘C’ at best today, and we only had an eight-point (aggregate) differential,” Cruz said. “That team played one of its better matches, I think, and we only lost in total points by eight. That’s got to be our positive there.”
USC’s Wes Smith tries for the save against Ball State/Scott Clouse photo
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