COLUMBUS, Ohio – A strong block at the net helped No. 3 seed BYU men’s volleyball sweep No. 6 seed Barton (25-19, 25-11, 25-15) Tuesday night at St. John Arena to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament.

“Congrats to Barton College on an outstanding season,” BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead said. “A huge congrats to our guys as well. It was a nice team effort tonight. We did a good job from the service line and a great job attacking. We can still improve our passing so we're going to work on that, but overall, a great team performance from our guys.”

Brenden Sander led the Cougars with 11 kills on a .409 clip to go with a career-high eight blocks. Price Jarman and Joseph Grosh had six and five blocks, respectively. Jake Langlois had seven kills and Tim Dobbert added six kills before being subbed out midway through the second set. Leo Durkin set the team with 20 assists and had a career-high tying three aces. Ben Patch had a career-high five aces in the win.

Langlois gave BYU (25-4) its first two points of the first set off of kills to even the score against Barton (23-6) 2-2. The contest remained close until a block from Dobbert, Durkin and Grosh gave the Cougars an 11-8 lead. A Dobbert kill extended the advantage to four at 17-13, and a Grosh overpass kill forced a Bulldog timeout with BYU up 19-14. Sander then served up the first ace of the night at set point to give the Cougars a 25-19 win.

Back-to-back Durkin aces helped put BYU ahead 8-1 to start the second set. Barton began to chip away at the lead, collecting consecutive kills from Aleksa Brkovic, to make it 11-5, Cougars. BYU countered with a 4-0 run, however, to go up by double-digits at 15-5. The Cougars cruised from there to the end of the set, winning 25-11 on a Grosh kill.

The third set started close as a Patch ace helped BYU to a 7-4 lead early. The Bulldogs scored the next four points, though, to take an 8-7 edge. The Cougars fought back to go up 14-11 on a Sander kill. Three-straight aces from Patch extended the lead to six at 20-14, and a Wil Stanley, Christian Rupert and Sander block ended the set and match 25-15.

The Cougars return to St. John Arena Thursday, May 4, at 6 p.m. EDT, to face off against No. 2 seed Long Beach State. The match will be streamed live on NCAA.com.

PROVO, Utah—BYU men’s volleyball secured an at-large bid to the 2017 NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championships Sunday, receiving the No. 3 seed.

BYU (24-4) will play No. 6 seed Barton (23-5) Tuesday, May 2, at 6 p.m. EDT. The Cougars have never faced the Bulldogs before. It will also be the first meeting for BYU against a Conference Carolinas foe.

Should the Cougars advance, they would face No. 2 seed Long Beach State (27-3) in the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, May 4, at 6 p.m. EDT.

Ohio State was given the No. 1 overall seed after going 30-2 overall, winning both the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association regular season and tournament titles.

The Buckeyes will face the winner of No. 4 seed Hawai’i (26-5) and No. 5 seed Penn State (21-10) on Thursday, May 4, at 8 p.m. EDT. The play-in match between the Rainbow Warriors and Nittany Lions will be held right after BYU’s match on Tuesday, May 2, at 8 EDT.

The semifinal matches will be streamed live on NCAA.com, with ESPNU broadcasting the final match Saturday, May 6, at 7 p.m. EDT.

All matches will be played at Ohio State’s St. John Arena.

Long Beach State (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation), Ohio State (MIVA), Penn State (Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) and Barton (CC) all received automatic bids for winning their respective conference championships. BYU and Hawai’i received the two at-large bids.

Ticket Information

All Session Prices: (includes both semifinals Thursday & championship Saturday)

• General Admission – Adult $25
• General Admission – Student/Youth $15
• General Admission – Group (minimum 10 people) $8

• General Admission – Adult $15
• General Admission – Student/Youth $10
• General Admission – Group (minimum 10 people) $5

• General Admission – Adult $8
• General Admission – Student/Youth $5

Additionally, there will be a fan fest at the Ohio State Ice Rink, located next door to St. John Arena, Saturday, May 6, from 4-6 p.m. EDT. It is free to attend. There will be face painting, sign making and an autograph session (5-5:30 p.m. for the general public and 4:30-5 p.m. exclusively for group sales). The court will also be open to pepper.

To purchase tickets visit the Ohio State Athletics Ticket Office, the Ticketmaster site, or call 1-800-GOBUCKS. The on-campus ticket office is open Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. EDT.

Doors will open one hour prior to the first match each day. Parking in St. John Arena lots will be free for every match.