HONOLULU – UC San Diego's season came to an end Thursday with a 3-0 loss to CSUN in the first round of the Outrigger Big West Men's Volleyball Championship.
Scores from SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center on the campus of the University of Hawai'i were 25-20, 28-26, and 25-22.
The fourth-seeded and 20th-ranked Tritons finish at 12-15 for their 2024 campaign.
The fifth-seeded and 14th-ranked Matadors improved to 13-15 and will face third-seeded Hawai'i Friday in a semifinal.
HOW IT HAPPENED
UC San Diego's offense never caught fire as the team hit just .205 with 27 kills and 12 errors in 72 attack attempts. The Tritons hit .000 in the first set, .267 in the second, and .318 in the third.
On the other side of the net, CSUN swung at .395 with 46 kills and 14 errors in 81 swings. The Matadors hit an impressive .842 in set three, putting down 17 kills with a single error in 19 attacks.
CSUN led in several statistical categories including kills (46-27), aces (8-5), and digs (29-17). UC San Diego came out on top with its blocking game (9-5).
Junior opposite Anthony Cherfan led the Tritons with 10 kills while adding five blocks, two aces, and two digs. Junior outside Sebastian Lara had eight kills and hit a team-best .353 (8-2-17). He also put down a pair of service aces. Sophomore middle blocker Peter Selcho was perfect on attack with five kills and no miscues in five attempts. He also added six blocks. Senior setter Gabriel Dyer dished out 22 assists and led the Tritons defensively with seven digs.
For CSUN, Jalen Phillips posted a match-high with 15 kills. Griffin Walters had 12 kills and Kyle Hobus added 11. Walters was firing, hitting .706 with zero errors in 17 attacks. Setter Donovan Constable assisted on 36 kills and also had a match-high eight digs.
Phillips, Walters, and Hobus combined for 38 of CSUN's 46 kills.
The match had 23 tie scores, 15 of those coming in the second set. The score was tied on 12 occasions, eight times in the second frame.
TRITON TIDBITS
• UC San Diego swept the regular season series against CSUN, winning 3-1 in La Jolla and 3-2 in Northridge.
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Anthony Cherfan registered his 16th match with a double-digit kill total.
• Earlier this week Cherfan was named All-Big West First Team and
Sebastian Lara was All-Big West Honorable Mention.
• The Tritons and Matadors have met just twice in the Big West Championship since its inception in 2018 and the series is tied at 1-1.
• UC San Diego has been the fourth seed five times (the team's most frequent seed) and is 2-3 in that position.
• The Tritons were coming off a sweep of No. 5 Hawai'i in their final regular season match of the season in La Jolla - their first straight set victory over the Rainbow Warriors since 2012.
• Third-seeded Hawai'i defeated sixth-seeded UC Santa Barbara in four sets in Thursday's second first round match.
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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.
