Mountain Pacific Sports Federation

All-MPSF Men's Volleyball Selections

4/11/2019 5:00:00 PM

Photo: Two-Time MPSF Player of the Year, Pepperdine's David Wieczorek (Courtesy Pepperdine Athletics)

2019 All-MPSF Men's Volleyball Selections--PDF
   
Pepperdine redshirt senior outside hitter David Wieczorek (Chicago, IL/Loyola Academy) repeats as MPSF Player of the Year, the fourth all-time to go back-to-back (Taylor Sander-BYU, 2012-13; George Roumain-Pepperdine; 1998-99; Jeff Nygaard-UCLA; 1994-95). Wieczorek played a large role towards the Waves’ 20 regular season wins and No. 1 seed in the MPSF Tournament. Wieczorek leads all MPSF Outside Hitters in hitting percentage at .372, which also ranks in the top-five overall in the conference. He ranks second in the MPSF in kills per set (3.84, NCAA 12th), points per set (4.58, NCAA ninth), and aces per set (0.43, NCAA 12th). Wieczorek was a two-time MPSF Player of the Week this year, and finished with seven weekly conference awards in his career. He was named both an MPSF and AVCA National Player of the Week on February 11, after hitting a combined .571 (26-2-42) through wins over Stanford and BYU. His second weekly honor came after the final two matches with wins over USC and Concordia, which capped an unbeaten home regular season for the Waves and the No. 1 MPSF seed. He hit .659 (31-2-44) while averaging 5.17 kills and 5.50 points per set for the week, including a career-best .739 (18-1-23) on his senior night. This is the all-time record eighth MPSF Men’s Volleyball Player of the Year award for Pepperdine (Wieczorek-2018-19; Paul Carroll-2009; Jon Winder-2007; Sean Rooney-2005; Brad Keenan-2002; Roumain-1998-1999).
   
BYU outside hitter Davide Gardini (Ravenna, Italy/Manfredi Azzarita) leads all NCAA freshmen in hitting percentage (.329), points per set (4.06), and kills per set (3.40), while he also leads all MPSF freshmen in aces per set (0.27). He is the only first-year player ranked in the MPSF’s top-10 in kill average in addition to the top-15 in hitting percentage. The only freshman to be named an MPSF Offensive Player of the Week this year, Gardini earned the honor on March 18 after leading the Cougars to wins over the top-two finishers in the conference, UCLA and Pepperdine. He capped off his fourth of six total 20-kill matches with the game winning hit against UCLA in extra points of set five, followed by recording a 17-kill night and .353 hitting clip against Pepperdine. Gardini hit at least .400 in eight of his 22 regular season matches, and at least .300 in seven others. He is the only freshman to earn 2019 All-MPSF recognition. Gardini is the sixth Cougar, and second-straight, to be named MPSF Freshman of the Year (Gabi Garcia Fernandez-2018; Ben Patch-2013; Taylor Sander-2011; Yamil Perez-2007; Ryan Millar-1996).