PREVIEW: Men’s Volleyball squares off with North Greenville on Thursday

SALISBURY, N.C. – The Catawba College men's volleyball team faces North Greenville for the second time this season on Thursday night, hosting the Trailblazers for a 7 p.m. start at Goodman Arena.

Saturday vs. Hawaiʻi

- Catawba is coming off its tallest test of the year against No. 4 Hawaiʻi, pulling out a third-set win in a 3-1 loss in front of a packed crowd

- Trevor Phillips recorded 19 kills on a .368 hitting percentage while collecting nine digs, three blocks and a service ace

- Luke O'Neill led the Catawba Indians in blocking with four stops – one unassisted – and chipped in three kills

- Kristian Smith racked up 40 assists, posting a .404 setting percentage, with one ace

Good Stuff at Goodman

- The Catawba Indians are 3-3 at Goodman Arena in their inaugural season, collecting each of their wins via sweep

- Nearly all of Catawba's statistics improve when filtering out the program's road matches

- The team's hitting percentage increases from .213 to .259 thanks to better marks from Phillips (.296), Jacob Brown (.295) and Wyatt Eastin (.293)

- Smith averages 10.65 dimes per set on home court, over a full assist more than his overall value

- Out of Eastin's 32 total blocks, half occurred in Salisbury despite his appearances in away matches outnumbering the home contests 8-5

Placing in the Top 20

- Phillips ranks 18th nationally and first among independent programs with 0.49 aces per set, totaling 24 darts

- The Davidson, N.C. native is also 18th in points per set (4.43) and slots 19th in kills per set (3.82)

- Smith's 9.65 assists per set stacks up 20th nationwide; his 59 assists in the five-set win at Barton and 51 dimes in four sets at King are the country's sixth-best marks

Scouting the Trailblazers

- North Greenville ventures into Salisbury holding a 4-6 overall record, dropping four of its last five contests

- The Trailblazers' first win of the year came at Catawba's expense in 3-1 fashion at Hayes Gymnasium in January

- Since the squads' initial meeting, NGU has fallen to two programs Catawba defeated in Barton and King, losing to the Tornado in five sets on Tuesday

- As a team, the Trailblazers rank second in the country with 10.58 digs per set and holds opponents to the nation's eighth-lowest hitting percentage of .194

- Michael de la Cruz paces NGU with 105 kills (2.76 per set) on a .341 hitting clip while also leading the way in service aces (15) and blocks (26)

Follow Along

The match will be broadcast on FloCollege ($) with live stats on CatawbaAthletics.com.