In route to their second national championship in as many years, the Ohio State Buckeyes swept the Cougars of BYU 25-19, 25-20, 25-22.

In a match in which the Buckeyes ruled offensively, hitting .358 as a team, and served tough enough to keep the Cougars out of system a majority of the evening, there was no turning away of junior outside hitter, Nicolas Szerszen, who led OSU with 16 kills and hit at authoritative .480 clip. Also contributing offensively were junior outside hitter Maxime Hervoir (10 kills, two errors, .471) and senior opposite Miles Johnson (nine kills). Senior setter Christy Blough notched 35 assists and two aces on the evening.


Although Szerszen did not record an ace in the national championship match, the velocity and difficulty of his, and the rest of the Buckeye team's, serves created enough trouble for the Cougars to prevent them from effectively running their offense. This only allowed seven total attack attempts for BYU middle blockers and forced Cougar pin hitters to swing against multiple blockers and take limited shots.

Both teams started slow on the offensive front, with BYU hitting .043 and OSU hitting .143 in the first set; however, the Buckeyes regrouped to hit a scorching .448 in the second, led by Johnson's six kills. Hervoir chipped in four kills in the set as well.



The third set saw BYU come out with offensive swagger as Ben Patch, Jake Langlois, and Brenden Sander notched three kills each and the team hit .455; however, the pressing Cougars only caused the Buckeyes' Szerszen to turn up the heat even more as he took over the match notching nine kills and hitting at a .667 clip in the third. As OSU put the "pedal to the medal" in the third, the Buckeyes outhit BYU with a white-hot .480 clip, allowing Ohio State to take match and defend its national title. 

The Cougars were led by Jake Langlois' eight kills, one solo block, and three block assists. BYU finished the season 26-5 while Ohio State finished 32-2.