STANFORD, Calif. - UC San Diego fell to No. 8 Stanford, 3-0, in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) men's volleyball match at Burnham Pavilion on Friday night. Set scores were 25-16, 25-20 and 25-19.
UCSD, playing a fourth match in eight days, dropped to 1-5 overall and 0-4 in the MPSF. Stanford improved to 4-1 overall and 2-1 in conference play.
Middle blocker Shayne Beamer finished with six kills and a team-high three blocks for UCSD. Fellow junior Ian Colbert added six kills of his own to go along with five digs, two service aces, two assists and a block. Sophomore setter Milosh Stojcic contributed 19 assists and a team-best seven digs. Alec Flowers, himself a sophomore, provided four kills on five swings (.600) off the bench.
The opening set saw just one tie score at 1-1 and Stanford in control from there, jumping out to leads of 8-2 and 18-11 ahead of UCSD's two timeouts, before closing it out on a Gabriel Vega ace.
The Tritons were up 6-4 early in the second frame, but the home side made it 6-6 moments later on a service ace by star senior setter James Shaw. Though UCSD still held the slimmest of edges at 7-6 and 8-7, it was Stanford taking a two-point advantage into the first timeout after back-to-back errors broke an eighth and final 13-13 deadlock. The Tritons came out of the break with a kill by Beamer, but the Cardinal answered with a 4-0 run, capped by another Shaw ace, to salt the set away.
A 3-0 stretch through a Stanford attack error, stuff block by Beamer and Stojcic, service ace by sophomore Luke La Mont, had UCSD ahead 8-5 in the third. The Tritons were still on top by two at 15-13 after Conrad Kaminski's awry serve. Stanford put together a 7-0 surge through both of UCSD's two timeouts, however, behind two Vega kills and two Shaw aces, to take a 20-15 lead. Despite a Beamer kill and attack error by Madison Hayden, the hosts tallied four more in a row on four kills to get to match point at 24-17. Chris Moore's only kill ended it.
Shaw completed his night with 28 assists, five aces to lead all players, six digs, two blocks, and two kills on four attacks. Vega had the only double-digit kill total, with 12 on .450 (12-3-20) hitting. Libero Evan Enriques had seven digs and four assists.
UCSD concludes a three-match road week at non-conference foe Holy Names (0-5) on Saturday, Jan. 23. First serve at Tobin Gymnasium in Oakland is set for 5 p.m.
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