LA JOLLA, Calif. - The No. 14 UC San Diego men's volleyball team suffered a 3-0 defeat to fourth-ranked Pepperdine in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) action at RIMAC Arena on Saturday afternoon. Set scores were 25-13, 25-13 and 25-15.
With the result, the Tritons are now 2-3 overall and 1-1 in the MPSF. In achieving its first victory of 2013, Pepperdine improved to 1-1 overall and 1-1 in league play.
Redshirt sophomore opposite Cheyne Hayes put down 11 kills to lead all players, but a large discrepancy at the net that saw the visiting Waves hold a 15-2 advantage in total team blocks jumped out as a large factor in the match result.
Junior setter Mike Brunsting, a Poway product, came off the bench to produce 14 assists and a match-high eight digs for UCSD.
For Pepperdine, Maurice Torres and Josh Taylor collected 10 kills apiece, while junior middle Parker Kalmbach finished with seven kills on .600 hitting (7-1-10), three assists and a match-high 10 total blocks. Torres added six blocks of his own, while sophomore setter Matt West ran the offense with 27 assists to go along with a match-high three service aces, one kill and two blocks.
The Waves were in command from start to finish, with the contest featuring just seven tie scores and two lead changes and lasting less than 70 minutes to play. At 9-9 in the first set, five straight points with two on Taylor kills gave Pepperdine all the cushion it needed as UCSD could not get closer than within four points from there.
A 5-0 run early in the second frame put the Waves up 9-3 and necessitated a Triton timeout. Another stretch of four successive points pushed the bulge to 14-5 and Pepperdine was not threatened for the remainder.
The third set, like the one before it, contained an early Waves surge that turned a 3-3 deadlock into an 8-3 score. The stretch was bookended by a pair of Torres kills around stuff blocks on three straight Triton attack attempts. Kalmbach combined on two of those. The Waves never allowed a window for UCSD to reenter the fray, using another stretch of eight consecutive points to put matters out of doubt at 22-9.
Pepperdine hit an efficient .492 for the afternoon with just five errors.
UCSD concludes a three-match homestand this Thursday night, Jan. 17, hosting 12th-ranked MPSF newcomer Cal Baptist (2-1, 0-0 MPSF). First serve is set for 7 p.m. at RIMAC Arena.
Triton Notes: With four more kills today, Carl Eberts upped his career total to 809, ninth-most in program history, as he vies to become just the fifth Triton ever to reach the 1,000-kill plateau ... With five more digs, Chase Frishman now has 483 for his career, sixth-most on the all-time UCSD list ... Cheyne Hayes reached double figures in kills for the second time this season and third in his career ... Today was the first time in his career that Cheyne Hayes produced the match high in kills ... Sophomore middle blocker Joel Schow made his season debut late in the third set ... To open the 2013 campaign, UCSD has now faced, in order, No. 5 Lewis, No. 6 UCLA, No. 7 Long Beach State, No. 8 USC and No. 4 Pepperdine.
-- UCSDtritons.com --
