BYU sweeps MPSF weekly honors

PROVO, Utah — No. 8 BYU men’s volleyball swept the MPSF/Molten weekly awards, with freshman Davide Gardini winning Offensive Player of the Week and sophomore Felipe de Brito Ferreira taking Defensive Player of the Week. De Brito Ferreira also won Off the Block National Middle Blocker of the Week and setter Brody Earnest won Off the Block National Freshman of the Week.

Gardini elevated his game once again last week, leading the Cougars to MPSF home wins over No. 4 UCLA and No. 6 Pepperdine. He totaled 20-or-more points in both matches and capped off his fourth 20-kill match of the season with the game winning hit against UCLA in extra points of set five. Gardini added a 17-kill night against Pepperdine, while hitting .353. He delivered an all-around effort with 16 digs and seven blocks to go along with three service aces during the week in helping BYU jump to second-place in the conference. This is the first career MPSF honor for Gardini.

De Brito Ferreira collected 13 of the Cougars’ 18.5 total blocks in the win over Pepperdine. The 13 blocks set a career-high, were the most for a Cougar since 2014, and the most in the conference since 2015. BYU’s total was the second-highest in the MPSF this year. Ferreira also had three blocks vs. UCLA and hit .533 with nine kills in the middle. This is the third career MPSF weekly award for Ferreira.

Freshman Brody Earnest came off the bench against UCLA and put up 31 assists to help the Cougars to a .373 hitting percentage in the final three games to come back from a two-game deficit. He then made his first collegiate start against Pepperdine and finished with 40 assists.

This is the fourth National Freshman of the Week award for BYU this season, with Gardini winning it three times, including one earlier this month.

The Cougars host the BYU Invitational this week with matches against Princeton on Thursday, McKendree on Friday and No. 2 Hawai’i on Saturday. All matches begin at 7 p.m. MDT.