BYU Roundup: No. 7 men’s volleyball finishes East Coast road trip with another sweep
Harold Mitchell, Special to the Herald
BYU's Teilon-Johnathan Tufuga takes a swing during a men's college volleyball match against UC Irvine at the Smith Fieldhouse on Friday, Jan, 24, 2026.NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — No. 7 BYU men’s volleyball picked up a dominant 3-0 (25-11, 25-17, 25-17) win over the Merrimack Warriors Monday night.
The Cougars have now moved to 9-2 this season, their only losses to No. 5 UC Irvine, with five straight victories since, all sweeps, all on the road. On Friday, BYU swept No. 20 Lincoln Memorial (25-21, 25-19, 25-19) and on Saturday earned a sweep of Harvard (25-22, 29-27, 25-19), with both matches part of the Harvard Invitational in Cambridge, Mass.
With Monday’s matchup being the Cougars’ third in four days, and getting out to some comfortable leads, BYU was able to rotate a number of players into the match. As a result, the Cougars’ individual statistics were spread out fairly evenly.
Teilon-Jonathan Tufuga led BYU with eight kills on 11 swings. In his past two matches, Tufuga has racked up 20 kills on 26 attempts, with no errors. Tufuga also had three aces in the match, now having racked up three or more aces in three straight matches.
Trevor Herget had six kills, Trent Moser had five, Max Philippe had four and four others had two or more. Tyler Herget had 16 assists in two sets. Kyle Zediker had eight assists in the third set. Bernardo Adam had a team-high eight digs in two sets.
The Cougars hit .388 and held the Warriors to .133 in the match.
The Cougars jumped out to a 5-1 lead to start the match and made it 10-5 on a booming kill from Tufuga. BYU furthered its lead with three blocks within four points to make the score 16-8, with Moser, Gavin Chambers and Philippe in on the blocks. The first set ended at 25-11 for BYU, the Cougars maintaining a comfortable lead throughout. Moser racked up five kills to lead BYU early. The Cougars hit .407 and held the Warriors to -.034.
BYU made a couple substitutions going into the second set, Trevor Herget and Adam entering the match. Trevor Herget picked up the first point of the set on a kill, and the score would stay closer early in the second set than it was in the first, BYU still maintaining a two-point cushion before eventually widening the lead to 12-7 on another powerful Tufuga kill and then 13-7 on a Merrimack attack error. A block by Chambers and Oldani stretched the lead to 16-8. BYU went up 20-11, but then the Cougars and Warriors would trade a few points before BYU eventually wrapped up a 25-17 set victory.
The Warriors picked up their first lead of the match, going up 2-0 in the third set. The Cougars fought back to make it 5-5 on a Tufuga kill that was set up by a no-look pass from Zediker. Two consecutive aces and a back-row kill from Tufuga made it 10-7 BYU. Merrimack fought back to get to 16-15, but a Trevor Herget kill ended a push from the Warriors. Kills by Philippe, Cole Hauser and Ian Little eventually helped the Cougars wrap up the match with the 25-17 win in the third set.
Tafuga finished the three matches hitting .509, totaling 34 kills on 55 swings with just six errors.
The Cougars return home for two matches at the Smith Fieldhouse against Menlo College to open MPSF conference play. Matches are at 7 p.m. both Friday and Saturday and can be viewed live on Big Ten Plus.
Dybantsa earns Big 12 newcomer award
IRVING, Texas – BYU’s AJ Dybantsa has been named the Big 12 Newcomer of the Week for a fourth time this season.
The 6-foot-9 small forward was also named to the Big 12 Starting Five for an eighth time this season after averaging 32.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game while shooting 64.7 percent from the field, 66.7 percent from three and 63.2 percent from the free throw line.
The nation’s leading scorer finished with 36 points at Oklahoma State last Wednesday, going 13-of-20 from the field, 5-of-8 from three and 5-of-7 from the free throw line. He now owns four of the Top 7 scoring performances by a freshman in program history including a record 43 points against Utah on Jan. 24.
In Saturday’s Top 25 matchup against No. 8 Houston, Dybantsa finished with 28 points, five rebounds, four assists and a block. He went 9-of-14 from the field, 3-of-4 from the three and 7-of-12 from the charity stripe. It was his 16th 20-point performance of the season, the second-most by a freshman and tied for the 17th most in single season regardless of classification.
