Update: This story has been updated to include the comments from BYU’s athletic department denying the injury and calling Patch’s absence a “coach’s decision.”
Last week’s AVCA National Player of the Week Ben Patch missed BYU’s latest game in what BYU is calling a “coach’s decision.”
BYU’s press release about the match (a 3-0 BYU win) didn’t include any information on Patch’s absence, but USC’s press release reported that Patch “was held out with an undisclosed injury.” However, BYU Athletics confirmed to VolleyMob that Patch was available to play in the match, but that “it was the coach’s decision for him not to [play] based on the competition.”
While that didn’t hurt the Cougars against the unranked USC Trojans, who were also without a notable player Gianluca Grasso, any long-term absence will leave BYU without their best scorer as they approach a more challenging stretch of their schedule. After playing unranked UCSD in a double-header next weekend, the Cougars travel to Stanford for a two game set in two weeks.
The 6’9″ Provo native is BYU’s starting outside hitter and before coming to BYU, was in the USA Volleyball Youth and Junior National pipeline. Patch was named an AVCA First-Team All-American last year after returning from his mission trip to lead the Cougars to the NCAA Championship game.
This year, Patch leads BYU with 4.83 kills/set on a .361 hitting percentage. He also leads the team with 48 digs in 36 sets and has 18 total blocks on the season. His 4.83 kills-per-set ranks him 2nd nationally, behind only USC’s Lucas Yoder.
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