PSU Men's Volleyball 2025 Season News

Best Frontline ever.

Not as tuned in to the new recruits/transfers for the men’s team. Really interested to see how this team will look with amount of people who have graduated over the past two seasons. Is anyone able to share how some of these new recruits were ranked coming out of high school?

Thank you for the info!

Today the Men's volleyball team had a scrimmage with the VLA team from DC.

There were two sets of matches, and I was only able to watch the ones in Rec Hall (since I can't be in two places at once).

It seemed that everyone that was in Rec Hall are most likely going to be where the starters are going to come from unless someone develops much more in the months to come.

Setter: Schwob
Libero: Merk
Middle: Rose, Stowe, Gabriel
Opposite: Trubbey, Luoma
Outside: Kuhns, Luoma, Harvey, Cosgrove, Dittman

Here are my thoughts on each position based on what I saw from matches. (This is a very small set of information so take it with a grain of salt)

Setter: Michael Schwob
It looks like the setter spot will be Schwob's. Last year was good considering that was the very first time he has set full time (he was a RS/S in high school). However, he had issues with set consistency and location. Based on what I saw today, the consistency and location has improved quite a bit. The tempo is still on the slow side though. I believe what gives him the edge over the other setters in the roster is that he is quite physical. He is a good blocker, he can attack and PSU usually has the longest runs on his serve last year.

Libero: Ryan Merk
With Power and Briggs graduating, there is no doubt in my mind that we have the best libero in men's college volleyball. With his reputation, Merk's job will be harder since teams will avoid him and he will have to most likely poach balls from weaker passers. I will discuss this in the outside hitter portion but with the graduation of Valenzi and Kowal, the passing line up will suffer a tad bit. Defense wise, he still gets balls up that you wouldn't think possible to keep up. Unlike the previous years, Merk will have much more playing experience than his fellow passers/defenders and he will most likely will have to be a leader in that aspect.

Middle:Owen Rose & Gaige Gabriel/Zach Stowe
Rose is a lock for the first middle spot. He's a solid attacker and our best blocker last year. The only problem has been his serve. As far as I've seen he's been keeping it in, but it still seems a tad inconsistent. The second spot is completely up for grabs. Toby in my opinion is the greatest loss based on what we have to replace him with for the team because we are losing a lot of production from the middle. Both Gabriel and Stowe are fairly good at reading the game and had some good blocks. Both of them don't have the best connection yet with Schwob. Based on what I saw, I will give the slight edge to Gabriel for now for two reasons, one, he has a better arm and two, he has a better serve.

Opposite: Miller Trubbey & Matthew Luoma
These guys are good. In my opinion you can't leave these guys off the court when they are having a good day. Both are exceptional servers. Trubbey has a slightly more dangerous serve. Luoma is a better blocker. In terms of hitting, Trubbey has the potential to be what John Kerr was last year, but he can be a little hot or cold. Luoma is more low error and is better on defense. If they can manage to keep Trubbey hot, I think he starts at opposite.

Outside Hitter: Depending on opposite if Trubbey Will Kuhns/ Matthew Luoma; if Luoma Will Kuhns/ Sean Harvey or Matt Cosgrove or Carter Dittman
The biggest problem in the NCAA tournament last year was that our outside could not keep up with physicality of UCI. I don't think that will be a problem this year.
Kuhns is the most complete player out of the four. He is a good passer, can get high for hitting and blocking.
Putting Luoma on the right can give us an arm that can score on the outside, the problem will be he can be a target for passing. I have seen him work on his passing, so he won't just be aced all the time, but I don't expect a Valenzi-type of passing from Luoma.
Harvey is a nice surpise. I like what he did for the most part today. He was an excellent blocker and hitter. Passing was inconsistent but had some very good moments. Serve also had great moments.
Cosgrove really worked on his serve consistency, and it showed. His serve is great and has some pretty good hitting moments. Passing again is a little suspect.
Dittman will be the outside that will play if passing is prioritized overall physicality and scoring potential. He has a good and consistent serve and can pass well. He is a good hitter but the velocity isn't the same as the other outsides.

Like last year, I thought that the losses from the previous year would cut down the capability of the team severely, but they still did quite well. I think they will manage the same way this year as well.

PSU MVB looking to schedule tough. I don't have a full schedule yet since other teams (and ours) haven't released their schedule but these are the team's that they will face.

- Lewis (at Lewis)
- USC x2 (One at Ohio State, one in Hawaii)
- UCLA x2 (one at Ohio State, one in Texas)
- Stanford (Texas)
- Hawaii (in Hawaii)
- Ball State (in Hawaii)
- NJIT x2 (EIVA)
- Harvard x2 (EIVA)
- Charleston x2 (EIVA)
- Sacred Heart x2 (EIVA)
- Princeton x2 (EIVA)
- George Mason x2 (EIVA)

Most likely but not confirmed:
- Ohio State x2
- Saint Francis x2
- A western team before they go to Hawaii x2 (my guess is GCU).

If they play the same amount of matches like last year, they should have one more team that I don't know of. Will update once I have a complete schedule or maybe they'll release before everyone else but they usually don't.

psuphdstudent - Do you think any of the true freshmen will play/surprise us?