LA JOLLA, Calif. – For the first time since 2012, UC San Diego men's volleyball swept fifth-ranked Hawai'i on Senior Night Saturday at Liontree Arena.
Set scores were 27-25, 25-21, and 25-20.
With the win on the final day of the regular season, UC San Diego upped its season record to 12-14 and improved to 4-6 in the Big West. The Tritons will serve as the No. 4 seed in next week's Big West Championship in Honolulu and will face off against fifth-seeded CSUN on Thursday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. Pacific.
Hawai'i, which downed UC San Diego 3-1 Friday night in La Jolla, fell to 22-6 and 5-5 in conference action. The Rainbow Warriors are the third seed in the Big West Championship.
The last time UC San Diego swept Hawai'i was on Jan. 6, 2012.
Prior to the match Triton seniors Andrew Boyle, Gabriel Dyer, and Paya Vatanshenas were honored.
HOW IT HAPPENED
For UC San Diego, outside Sebastian Lara finished with a match-high 14 kills while hitting .478 (14-3-23). Opposite hitter Anthony Cherfan was just behind with 13 kills and added four blocks, two service aces, and two digs. Outside Josh Schellinger had seven kills while Jim Garrison had five and put down four aces, a new career-high for the middle blocker. Middle Peter Selcho had four blocks (one solo).
All three seniors played a role. Dyer, the Tritons' primary setter, finished with 29 assists and a match-high 10 digs. He also contributed two kills, and ace, and a block. Vatanshenas, a libero, had three assists and three digs, while Boyle, a setter, totaled a kill, a dig, and an assist.
Similar to Friday's match, UC San Diego and Hawai'i went toe-to-toe in several team statistics. The Tritons held a .352 (43-11-91) hitting percentage to the Rainbow Warriors' .337 (40-12-83). UC San Diego shined from the service line, converting nine aces to the visitor's four. The Tritons held a slight advantage in blocks, 8-7 and the Rainbow Warriors won the digs category, 31-22.
After dropping the first four points of the match, UC San Diego responded with a 6-1 run, tying the game with a block and securing the team's first lead with a Lara kill. The score stood at 15-12 by the first media timeout.
The two sides went back-and-forth, reaching a 24-23 Rainbow Warrior advantage before a Triton timeout turned the tide. A nail-biting 4-1 run, finished off by another Lara kill off an assist by Vatanshenas, swung the first set the host's way at 27-25.
The two sides were tight from the start of the second set, with the Rainbow Warriors maintaining a two-point lead throughout the first half of play. The Tritons went in front with a 4-0 run for a familiar 15-12 advantage at the media timeout.
UC San Diego maintained a healthy distance from here thanks to two service aces from Garrison and a kill from five different Tritons. A 22-19 score prompted a UC San Diego timeout, once again proving fruitful as they took a 2-0 set lead with a Schellinger cross-court kill.
With no more than a point of distance and the score flipping four times up until the midpoint, the third set was a deadlock. Save for a momentary 12-10 Hawai'i lead, the Tritons were the first ones to break the trend, going up 17-14 on a trio of unanswered points.
Another 3-0 run came soon after to make it 20-15, a campaign punctuated by an extended sequence ending with a Boyle kill. With UC San Diego in front 23-19, three straight service errors - one by the Tritons and two by the Rainbow Warriors - closed out the match.
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
WHAT GABE DYER AND BRAD ROSTRATTER HAD TO SAY
TRITON TIDBITS
• With the win, the Tritons broke a four-match win drought against the Rainbow Warriors dating back to March 2, 2022.
• The win marks the first time UC San Diego has won its final conference game since joining the Big West in 2018.
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Anthony Cherfan notched his 16th outing with a double-digit kill total.
UP NEXT
The Big West Championship is slated for April 18-20 at Simplifi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu. The winner earns an automatic berth in the NCAA Championship. The top two seeds have a bye in the first round and begin play in the semifinals against the winners of the two opening round matches. Here's a look at the seedings.
1. Long Beach State
2. UC Irvine
3. Hawai'i
4. UC San Diego
5. CSUN
6. UC Santa Barbara
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About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 84 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.
