PROVO, Utah — No. 6 BYU men's volleyball is set to host St. Thomas Aquinas College in a pair of matches this weekend on Friday and Saturday for its home opener of the 2025 season.
COUGARS (2-0)
The No. 6 Cougars are coming off a pair of wins against No. 11 Ohio State, sweeping the Buckeyes on the road. Luke Benson and Teon Taylor also swept the MPSF's Player of the Week honors, with Benson claiming Offensive POW and Taylor earning Defensive POW for their performances against the Buckeyes. Benson leads the team in kills with 34 while Taylor leads the team in blocks with 13 so far this season.
BYU is 26-9 all-time in its home openers and Shawn Olmstead is 7-2 for home openers during his tenure at BYU. The Cougars have won their home opener four times out of the last five years in the Smith Fieldhouse.
SPARTANS (0-0)
The St. Thomas Aquinas College men’s volleyball team claimed its first-ever East Coast Conference Tournament Championship in April 2024. STAC, located in Sparkhill, New York, closed out its 2024 campaign with an 11-12 overall record.
Sophomore outside hitter Kyran Versteegan was recently named the 2025 ECC Men's Volleyball Preseason Player of the Year. Coming off of a freshman campaign where he was voted the ECC Player of the Year and ECC Championship Most Outstanding Player and a summer in which he competed with the Dutch National Team, Versteegen was a unanimous selection for this season's ECC Preseason Player of the Year.
COUGARS VS SPARTANS
The two teams have never faced each other before in men’s volleyball. Friday will be STAC’s first game of the season while BYU has already played in two matches. Most recently, BYU swept Ohio State in a pair of matches on the road, defeating Ohio State 3-1 in both games.
BROADCAST INFO
- Friday, Jan. 10 at 7 p.m. MT on BYUtv
- Saturday, Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. MT on Big 10 Network+, with a rebroadcast on BYUtv at 10 p.m. MT