No. 5 Lopes, No. 7 Waves meet in Malibu

Wednesday, February 22

Malibu, Calif.

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Pepperdine

2/21/2023 3:37:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Lopes takes 13-0 record on the road in top-10 matchup

By: Jerob Moon


No. 5 Grand Canyon Lopes (13-0, 2-0 MPSF)	vs.	No. 7 Pepperdine Waves (9-5, 1-1 MPSF)
		Wednesday/Friday, Feb. 22/24 7 p.m./1 p.m. (Phoenix time) Firestone Fieldhouse
Match Notes		Live Stats Live Video

The No. 5 Grand Canyon men's volleyball will hit the road for the second straight week when they take on No. 7 Pepperdine in a top-10 matchup in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play. The Lopes are coming off two road wins over No. 12 USC as they pushed their best start in program history to 13-0.

Both matches will be streamed live on the WCC Network.

3 THINGS TO KNOW

WARDLOW EARNS MPSF HONOR: Junior middle blocker Rico Wardlow earned his first conference award of the season when he was named the MPSF Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. Wardlow led the Lopes with 10 blocks and added four digs in the two wins against the Trojans. The Bolingbrook, Ill. native also added 15 kills on .444 hitting on the offensive end.
THORNE BREAKS OUT: Along with Wardlow's strong play at the net, fellow middle blocker Cameron Thorne had his best weekend as a Lope. The GCU freshman had 18 kills on .500 hitting and in game two against USC he had a career-high 11 kills on 14 errorless swings. Thorne also had eight blocks and 23.5 points in his all-around performance.
10-MATCH HOMESTAND: After the road trip to Pepperdine the Lopes will be back in the friendly confines of GCU Arena for the entire month of March. GCU will host 10 straight matches at GCU Arena starting with BYU on March 3 and ending on Senior Day on April 1 against UCLA.

SCOUTING

Pepperdine started conference play last week on the road splitting two matches against Stanford in a rematch of the 2022 MPSF Tournament title match which the Waves won advancing to the NCAA Tournament. Pepperdine is led by their start outside hitter Jaylen Jasper and AVCA All-American setter Bryce Dvorak. So far this season Jasper has lived up to the expectation leading the conference in 252 kills and 4.94 kills per set. Dvorak is also leading the conference in 11.16 assists per set. As a team the Waves ranks inside the top-10 in four different categories include hitting percentage and aces per set.