LA JOLLA, Calif. ? The UC San Diego men's volleyball team saw its three-match win streak come to an end against NAIA power Cal Baptist in a 22-30, 30-27, 30-26, 30-24 loss on Tuesday night in RIMAC Arena. With the loss, UCSD drops to 9-16, while Cal Baptist improves to 11-11. Jason Spangler led the Tritons with 19 kills, bringing his season-total to 434 kills. With 13 digs, Eric Leserman brought his season total to 258, 10 short of setting a new single-season mark. CBU was led by Donald Baliaba with 21 kills and Adil Tiedjop with 15 kills.
In addition to Spangler's 19 kills, Frank Fritsch added 13 kills and Gerald Houseman added 10 kills. Russ Hardy, the lone Triton senior who was honored during senior night, finished with nine kills and six digs. Phil Bannan distributed 33 assists.
CBU outhit UCSD .258 - .152 and outblocked the Tritons 19.5 ? 10.5.
UCSD took the first game easily. The Tritons jumped out to a 15-10 lead and quickly built the lead to 20-13. CBU could not pull closer than four points the rest of the way as Hardy put game one away with a kill at 30-22.
Spangler recorded seven kills against one error in game two, but it was not enough. With the score tied at 26-26, CBU recorded a kill and a couple of Triton errors gave CBU game two at 30-27.
The third game went back-and-forth with 17 ties and 11 lead changes. The final tie came at 23-23. With the Tritons within 27-25, Baliaba of the Lancers recorded three kills to help CBU to the 30-26 win.
In the fourth game, the eighth tie of the game came at 8-8. From that point, the Lancers never trailed. With the Tritons trailing 21-20, CBU scored 10 of the final 13 points for the win.
The Tritons return to Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play on Friday, April 4 when it travels to face Stanford. First serve is set for 7:00 p.m. on the Stanford campus.
