No. 16 Stanford will face No. 5 UC Irvine in men’s volleyball matches scheduled for Friday and Saturday at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, with both contests set to begin at 6 p.m.
Stanford comes into the weekend with a 1-4 record after splitting its recent home series against then-No. 17 UC Santa Barbara. The Cardinal secured its first win of the season in a five-set match, highlighted by opposite Moses Wagner’s performance of 21 kills on .304 hitting and 10 digs, marking his first double-double of the year. Wagner averaged 3.75 kills per set over the weekend.
A notable storyline for this matchup involves Stanford head coach John Kosty and his son Cameron Kosty, who is a redshirt freshman setter for UC Irvine. Cameron recorded a career-high 49 assists during UCI’s second match at BYU last week, which ranks as the third highest total by any Big West player this season.
In preseason polling, Stanford was picked to finish fourth in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) by league coaches. UCLA was selected as the favorite to win the regular season title for a fifth consecutive year, while Pepperdine and USC tied for second place in voting.
Statistically, Stanford currently stands second in the MPSF with an average of 8.80 digs per set but ranks lower in other categories such as hitting percentage (.275), blocks (1.53), and aces (0.75). Individually within conference rankings, Carreira is tenth in hitting percentage (.434), while Wagner is fourth both in kills per set (3.85) and points per set (4.28).
The coaching staff has seen changes recently: Matt Houlihan returns to Stanford as interim Al Roderigues Assistant Coach after eight seasons as volunteer assistant from 2017 to 2024; he replaces Spencer Wickens, who left for an assistant women’s volleyball coaching role at Minnesota.
Stanford also announced that four high school players—Peter Debiec from North Carolina, Declan Flanagan from California, Aleksey Mikhailenko from Wisconsin, and Lincoln Myers from Wisconsin—have signed letters of intent to join the team starting fall 2026.
Reflecting on last season, head coach John Kosty led Stanford to a 13-15 overall record and advancement to the semifinals of the MPSF Tournament for a fourth straight year—a program first—finishing No. 13 nationally according to AVCA rankings after being ranked every week during the campaign.
Kosty completed his nineteenth season leading Stanford men’s volleyball and thirty-fifth overall on staff last year; his career record now stands at 274-242. Under his tenure since taking over as head coach in 2007, Stanford has won one NCAA championship (2010), reached another final (2014), produced nine first-team AVCA All-America selections across nineteen seasons, and appeared in sixteen MPSF Tournaments.
