RIVERSIDE, Calif. ? The UC San Diego men's volleyball team held its own against the top ranked NAIA team in Cal Baptist, losing 21-30, 30-28, 33-35, 24-30 on Tuesday night in Riverside. The loss drops the Tritons to 4-10 overall, while CBU improves to 12-5. Will Ehrman led the Tritons with 21 kills and hit at a .361 clip. Frank Fritsch added 14 kills and Jason Spangler added 11. Brooks Dierdorff tallied 48 assists to become UCSD's all-time assists leader. With the match tied at 1-1, UCSD and CBU played a prolonged and decisive game three. The Tritons had three chances to take the lead in the match, but could not pull it out. UCSD is back in action with an MPSF match when it returns to RIMAC to host No. 13 LBSU on Saturday night. First serve is set for 7:00 p.m.
A kill from Urs Gunthor made the score 20-17 and got the Lancers going for a final game-one push, as CBU pulled away to a 24-18 advantage. The Lancers benefited from 2 of the Tritons' 9 first-game hitting errors in the 4-1 rally, and continued to control the pace of the game, including a 3-0 run to conclude the set at 30-21.
Awudu got started with 8 first-set kills on just 11 errorless swings to lead the team to a .440 (15-4-25) hitting percentage. The Lancers also held UC San Diego to an anemic .114 (13-9-35) clip in game one.
Brooks Dierdorff stuffed the Lancers 5 times in the second set, as the Tritons stymied CBU for 6 blocks, leading to 11 Lancer hitting errors in game 2. UC San Diego rocked 16 kills and a .387 (16-4-31) hitting percentage in the set.
CBU had led, 25-22, in the set, but the Tritons pulled ahead, winning 4 of the next 5 points to tie the score at 26-26. The Lancers then picked up a 28-27 advantage, but the Tritons again came back and Frank Fritsch, who had 6 kills in the set, ripped a pair of consecutive kills to end the game at 30-28.
Game 3 didn't look promising either, with CBU's back to the wall at 3 game points. However, backed into a 33-32 hole, the Lancers capitalized on a pair of UC San Diego errors and polished off the game at 35-33 on a 3-way block from Yukai Sun, Bryan Anders and Eric Plunkett.
The Lancers jumped out to a 6-2 lead on Baliaba's kill in game 3 and kept the momentum alive, hitting .379 (17-6-29) en route to the win as Awudu smashed 8 kills in the final set. The Tritons were held to a .107 (11-8-28) clip in the final game as CBU cruised to a 30-24 win.
