BELMONT, N.C. — The Catawba College men's volleyball team plays its second and third matches of the 2026 campaign this week with a trip to Belmont Abbey on Thursday, followed by the home opener against Lees-McRae on Friday night.

First Ranked Win
- Catawba opened its second season of men's volleyball with a bang, upsetting the 19th-ranked George Mason Patriots last Saturday in a thrilling five sets
- Mason was just the third nationally-ranked program Catawba has faced in its short history as No. 4 Hawai?i and No. 16 Lincoln Memorial appeared on the docket last year
- John Cordray fronted the offensive attack with 19 kills on a .359 clip as Kristian Smith was solid in assists and service, tallying 43 dimes with four aces
- Making his collegiate debut, Logan Neitzel recorded the second-best blocking value in program history with eight stops while smashing nine kills with no errors for a .600 hitting percentage

New Kid Neitzel
- On top of making the second-largest blocks mark in program history, Neitzel's eight blocks against the Patriots stands third through the opening week among five-set matches nationwide
- Listed at 6-foot-10, the freshman middle blocker is Catawba's tallest student-athlete on campus as he stands three inches above the loftiest basketball players
- Neitzel comes from a volleyball family as his parents played at UW-Oshkosh – his father helped found the club team, while his mother competed for the dominant Division III program – and his sister just wrapped up her senior year of college volleyball at Purdue Northwest

All-Time Series
- Catawba played Belmont Abbey twice last year in a home-and-home series, falling in both matchups but taking a set in each
- Against Lees-McRae, the Catawba Indians rolled to a pair of sweeping victories last season with a 76-54 point differential in the matchup at Goodman Arena

Scouting the Crusaders
- Receiving votes in the AVCA poll, Belmont Abbey is the Conference Carolinas favorite after earning the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament last season, falling in the opening round to No. 3 seed UCLA
- That loss to the Bruins was The Abbey's last time on the court as the Crusaders open their season within friendly confines
- The Crusaders had three players make the CC watch list, led by defending AVCA All-America Honorable Mention and First Team All-Conference honoree Zach Puentes who piled on a team-high 270 kills last year
- Jibriel Elhaddad and Joseph Morris are also coming off all-league campaigns and provide strength on defense as they combined for 151 blocks in 2025

Scouting the Bobcats
- Lees-McRae is two matches deep into their season, but has yet to record a set win with 3-0 defeats at Charleston and Queens on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively
- LMC looks to improve upon last season's 3-23 ledger in which the Bobcats were able to win stanzas against conference leaders Belmont Abbey and Mount Olive late in the year
- The Bobcats have had to replace both of their triple-digit-kill attackers and their top blocker from 2025, leaving junior Ben Fincham to fill the gap as he leads the team with 12 kills
- A couple of new faces in freshmen Davide Nicolini (nine kills, three aces) and Evan Harris (nine kills, five blocks) have entered the fold for LMC
- Four-year starter Ben Ratliff-Becher adds leadership in the libero slot with his nine digs leading the way

Follow Along
- Thursday's match will be broadcast on the Conference Carolinas Digital Network with live stats on abbeyathletics.com
- Friday's match will be streamed live on FloCollege with live stats available on CatawbaAthletics.com