Jasper recorded 19 kills, six digs, four blocks, and an ace in the Waves’ 3-1 victory over NJIT on Jan. 27
Pepperdine Waves men’s volleyball player Jaylen Jasper was deemed the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation’s Offensive Player of the Week for consecutive weeks last month.
Jasper, a graduate student who played at Stanford from 2018-20, won the weekly honor during a stretch of games in which Pepperdine, ranked fifth nationally at press time, went 4-1.
The 6-foot-7 outside hitter garnered the MPSF offensive award on Jan. 30 after averaging 4.29 kills, 1.15 digs, 0.43 aces and 0.86 blocks per set in Pepperdine’s wins over NJIT and George Mason.
Jasper won the award for the first time this season seven days earlier (Jan. 23) after tallying 5.64 kills per set and 62 total kills in the Waves’ victories over Princeton and Lewis and loss to Penn State.
In the 3-0 win over Princeton on Jan. 16, Jasper had 18 kills on a .556 hitting percentage with four digs and a block. Then, the 2022 AVCA All-American honorable mention rang up 21 kills, one ace, and six digs in a 3-1 loss to Penn State on Jan. 20. Jasper had 23 kills in the four-set win over Lewis the next day.
Jasper recorded 19 kills, six digs, four blocks, and an ace in the Waves’ 3-1 victory over NJIT on Jan. 27. The next day, Pepperdine swept George Mason. In that game, Jasper had a season-high .647 hitting percentage with 11 kills on 17 errorless swings. He also had two aces, two solo blocks, and two digs.
Jasper has now won the weekly offensive honor three times as a Wave. He also won the award three times when he played for Stanford.
Before Jasper claimed the offensive status from the MPSF, his teammate Bryce Dvorak, a junior setter, claimed the distinction. Dvorak won the status on Jan. 16 after he led the Waves to sweeps over The Master’s and Emmanuel. He propelled Pepperdine to a .493 hitting percentage and 91 kills with only 19 errors on 146 swings of the arms.
Dvorak had 34 assists against The Master’s on Jan. 13 and 27 assists against Emmanuel the next day. In the two matches, Dvorak also recorded four aces, two kills, two digs and a block. He has now won the MPSF Offensive Player of the Week four times in his career.
Pepperdine went 1-1 against UC Santa Barbara to begin the month. The Waves defeated the Gauchos 25-23, 25-21, and 25-21 at Pepperdine’s Firestone Fieldhouse on Feb. 1, but were felled by them two days later in Santa Barbara 25-21, 21-25, 25-16, 11-25, 12-15.
Jasper had 17 kills, four blocks, and six digs, and Dvorak dished out 35 assists to go along with seven digs and two blocks in the Waves’ victory. Senior outside hitter Akin Akinwumi had nine kills and four blocks and redshirt sophomore outside hitter Joe Deluzio had eight kills and three digs for Pepperdine.
Jasper had 26 kills and 10 digs in the loss to UC Santa Barbara, while Dvorak tallied 54 assists and two aces. Junior libero Trey Coe had 14 kills; Deluzio had 10 kills, seven digs, and three blocks; and Jacob Steele had 11 kills and three digs.
Pepperdine had an 8-2 recorded heading into their game against UC Irvine on Wednesday. The Waves face UC Irvine again on Friday in Irvine.