NCAA Men's Volleyball Records: Kills, Aces and Set Scores
Find NCAA men's volleyball kill, assist and ace records, plus the 48–46 set in 2026—and learn why division and scoring era matter.
Chris Chase’s 56 kills in a five-set match and Brent Hilliard’s 3,034 career kills lead their respective pre-2001 categories in the NCAA’s National Collegiate record book. The book lists Arvis Greene Jr.’s 40 kills as the five-set rally-scoring record. Those labels matter: NCAA men’s volleyball records are separated by scoring era, match length and division. Source: NCAA National Collegiate records.
The statistical marks below reflect the NCAA record books through the 2025 season, not a complete revision through 2026. The set-score section includes the January 2026 record-breaking UCLA–Ohio State match.
Selected National Collegiate records
A kill is an attack that directly wins a rally. An assist credits a pass, set or dig to a teammate who attacks for a kill; an ace directly scores from the serve. None is interchangeable with the team’s scoreboard total. Source: NCAA statisticians’ manual, sections 1–3.
The following are selected leaders from the NCAA’s National Collegiate individual records, pages 2–4. The category column is part of the record—not an optional qualification.
| Record category | Mark | Player, school and performance |
|---|---|---|
| Kills, five-set match, 1970–2000 | 56 | Chris Chase, Penn State vs. UC Santa Barbara, March 2, 1987 |
| Kills, three-set match, 2001 onward | 29 | Paul Carroll, Pepperdine vs. BYU, March 8, 2008 |
| Kills, four-set match, 2001 onward | 37 | Paul Carroll, Pepperdine vs. UC Irvine, February 20, 2009 |
| Kills, five-set match, 2001 onward | 40 | Arvis Greene Jr., CSUN vs. UC Irvine, April 6, 2018 |
| Career kills, sideout-scoring category | 3,034 | Brent Hilliard, Long Beach State, 1990–93 |
| Career kills, rally-scoring category | 2,198 | Costas Theocharidis, Hawaii, 2000–03 |
| Season kills, 25-point scoring | 557 | Hilir Henno, UC Irvine, 2024; 117 sets |
| Season kills per set, 25-point scoring | 5.57 | Jonas Umlauft, Hawaii, 2011; 551 kills in 99 sets |
| Season assists, 25-point scoring | 1,364 | Josh Tuaniga, Long Beach State, 2016; 122 sets |
| Season aces, 25-point scoring | 106 | Moni Nikolov, Long Beach State, 2025; 110 sets |
| Season digs, 25-point scoring | 377 | Victor Scherer, Central State (Ohio), 2023; 106 sets |
The NCAA places Theocharidis in its rally-scoring career category even though his listed career began in 2000. That category does not mean every counted set was played after the scoring change.
Total versus rate: two different records
Henno’s 557 kills divided by 117 sets equals 4.76 kills per set, matching UC Irvine’s final 2024 statistics. Umlauft’s 551 divided by 99 equals 5.57 after rounding. Henno accumulated more kills; Umlauft produced them faster per set.
Similarly, Nikolov’s 106 aces in 110 sets equals about 0.964 aces per set. That is a rate per set, not the percentage of his serves that became aces. Long Beach State’s final 2025 statistics confirm the total and sets played.
Why the scoring era changes the comparison
For NCAA men’s volleyball, the relevant changes were:
- 2001: the move from 15-point sideout scoring to 30-point rally scoring, with the fifth set remaining at 15.
- 2011: the move from 30-point to 25-point sets, again retaining a 15-point fifth set.
The NCAA explicitly separates record categories to preserve achievements under the different formats. Its season records distinguish all three eras, while many single-match categories group 2001 onward together. Source: record-book introduction.
Under sideout scoring, a receiving team could win a rally without adding a scoreboard point. Consequently, a set to 15 could still contain many attacks, kills and digs. Under rally scoring, each rally adds a point. A per-set rate adjusts for sets played, but does not remove the effect of different scoring formats. See how volleyball scoring works.
Division III has a separate record book
The first NCAA men’s Division III championship was held in 2012, marking the start of its separate record coverage. Records for DIII institutions before 2012 remain in the National Collegiate book. That explains why historical entries for schools such as SUNY New Paltz appear there. Source: NCAA Division III records.
Two DIII marks show why an unqualified “NCAA record” can mislead:
- 43 kills in five sets: Alejandro Garcia Fernandez, Eastern Nazarene vs. SUNY Potsdam, March 12, 2022.
- 28 aces in three sets: Haoxin Hu, Baruch vs. Medgar Evers, February 11, 2025.
Both are listed in the DIII record book. Baruch’s match account also confirms Hu’s 28 aces. By contrast, the National Collegiate book lists Ben Harrington’s 13 against Queens on January 8, 2024, as its three-set rally-scoring ace record.
The 2026 set-score record: 48–46
On January 29, 2026, UCLA beat Ohio State 25–21, 48–46, 25–20. The second set’s 94 combined points established a new NCAA men’s volleyball mark, reported by both NCAA.com and UCLA.
The finish illustrates win-by-two scoring: at 46–46, UCLA’s block made it 47–46, but the set was not over. Andrew Rowan’s ace supplied the necessary two-point margin at 48–46. It was still a set scheduled to 25, not a special 48-point format.
Championship records are a different list
UCLA leads the National Collegiate championship count with 21 titles through 2026. Its latest was in 2024; Long Beach State won in 2025 and Hawaii in 2026. Sources: UCLA’s title history and NCAA championship history.
For champions, runners-up and final match scores, use the year-by-year NCAA volleyball championship table. For additional statistical categories, start with the NCAA’s men’s volleyball records hub, then choose National Collegiate or Division III before comparing a box score.