The Master’s University men’s volleyball team got 20 kills from the AVCA NAIA Player of the Year Braden Van Groningen to defeat the No. 9-seed Mount Mercy (IA) Mustangs in the Tuesday, April 29 opening match of the 2025 NAIA Men’s Volleyball National Championship.

The TMU Mustangs (24-0) won 25-18, 30-28, 25-18 in their pool play match. Should TMU win their next pool play match, the team will advance to Friday’s semifinals.

Quickly jumping out to a 4-1 lead in the first set, The Master’s increased the lead to five at 12-7. The Mustangs then went on an 8-5 run to open up the largest lead of the match, 20-12, before settling for the 25-18 first set win.

The second set was completely different, with the Iowa Mustangs grabbing the early 5-1 lead. TMU then went on a 5-1 run to tie it at 6-6, but then each side traded blows with neither getting more than a two-point advantage. The Master’s was able to get to set point at 24-23, only to find Mount Mercy get the next point to tie it up.

Five times the California Mustangs had set point, and five times Mount Mercy won the next point.

But when it was tied at 28-28, Max McCullough got a kill and then followed that with an ace to earn The Master’s the 30-28 win and a 2-0 advantage in sets.

McCullough finished with five aces in the match.

The third set started like the second, with the Iowa Mustangs jumping out to a 5-1 lead. And once again the team from California came back and tied it at 7-7, only this time TMU continued on a 7-2 run to make it 14-9. After a Mount Mercy timeout, the California Mustangs broke it open, taking the score to 21-13 before swapping points and finishing with a 25-18 set win and a sweep of the match.

“It was good to pull out that match in three today,” said TMU Head Coach Jared Goldberg. “There is a lot of high level volleyball being played here at nationals and we are gonna have a good challenge ahead of us the rest of the week.”

The Master’s hit .269 for the match, below their season average of .357, and held Mount Mercy to .139. TMU took the advantage in kills (44-35), blocks (11-5) and aces (7-3).

Matthew Hamm finished with 34 assists, while Van Groningen, Trace Oswald and Ezra Vlad each had four blocks apiece.

The Master’s will next play No. 8-seed Park University (MO) on Thursday, May 1 in its final pool play match. First serve is scheduled for 5 p.m. PT.

For more information visit GoMustangs.com.