LA JOLLA, Calif. – No. 10 UC San Diego Men's Volleyball (17-9, 3-5 Big West) could not hold on after going up 2-0 against No. 9 CSUN (18-8, 3-5 Big West) and fell in five sets at LionTree Arena Saturday.
Set scores of the marathon went 21-25, 22-25, 25-23, 39-37, and 15-11.
Anthony Cherfan was a constant threat from above with a team-leading 26 kills while also contributing two service aces and eight digs. Leo Pravednikov and Josh Schellinger were a strong supporting cast with 20 and 18 kills, respectively.
The two teams battled Thursday in Northridge as well with the Matadors winning that match 3-2 as well.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Cherfan kicked off the contest with a well-placed kill, setting up a two-point cushion maintained throughout the first set. He collected two more slams in a kill-heavy set; by the first media timeout, CSUN collected seven of its 11 points and UC San Diego 10 of 15, off kills. A 3-0 CSUN run out of the break closed the gap to 15-14. The Tritons then relied on kills from Cherfan, Schellinger, and Pravednikov, who each contributed a pair. A final slam from the latter finished off the first set 25-21 in favor of UC San Diego.
Set two saw the Matadors get off to a hot 4-0 start off two kills and as many Triton attack errors. The hosts clawed back, however, highlighted by a trio of Cherfan kills and capped off by a Selcho-Schellinger block to claim a 9-8 lead. The two sides traded the lead from this point, keeping it within one point throughout the second half of the set. It would take kills from Schellinger and Pravednikov to create the vital two-point cushion at 20-18, prompting a Matador timeout. The Tritons combined two CSUN service errors, a pair of Cherfan kills, and a Cherfan-Selcho block to claim a 25-22 set win and 2-0 set lead.
The third set started and remained tense throughout. CSUN claimed the edge with a trio of 2-0 runs. Service errors also plagued UC San Diego as the Tritons conceded four points by the midpoint for a 13-10 score. UC San Diego dialed in soon after, tying the game at 13 with a pair of blocks and a CSUN attack error. The Matadors enacted a 7-4 run propped up by six kills to force a UC San Diego timeout at 20-17. The teams went kill-for-kill out of the timeout, each collecting two. Cherfan followed it up with his second service ace of the game to close the gap to 22-21. A well-placed Cherfan drop and extended sequence in favor of UC San Diego later brought the deficit back to one point at 24-23 and CSUN called its final timeout. The break would pay off as the visitors dropped in a final point to make the match move to 2-1 Tritons.
Fatigue seemed to set in during the fourth set for both teams. The score remained tight with a slight but consistent Triton advantage thanks to a Pravednikov service ace and a pair of Schellinger kills. The Matadors reclaimed a 17-16 lead with consecutive kills, forcing a Triton timeout. UC San Diego came out of the break firing with three power slams and a brick wall block to go up 20-19. However, Triton service errors gave the lead back to the Matadors at 22-20. The hosts worked back to tie the game at 23 with two more kills and a CSUN attack error. A Schellinger kill got the Tritons within one, but it would take an additional 30 sequences for the set victor to be decided. The war of attrition was eventually won by CSUN, who linked a kill and a Triton attack error to win 39-37 and force a fifth set.
The final frame was close from the get-go, with neither side gaining a two-point edge until an attack error gave CSUN a 7-5 lead. A Selcho kill and bad CSUN set got the hosts close at 10-9, but disciplined Matador kills kept the necessary distance to give them the 15-11 set win and the 3-2 match victory.
BRAD ROSTRATTER INTERVIEW
TRITON TIDBITS
• Anthony Cherfan's 26 kills were just one shy of his career best.
• UC San Diego's hitting percentages, by set, were .361, .407, .250, .304 and .235; the hosts outhit the visitors in the first, second and fourth sets.
• The attendance of 1,007 was the second-consecutive home match with over 1,000 fans in attendance.
UP NEXT
UC San Diego gets set for No. 1 Long Beach State, which visits La Jolla on Friday, April 18 at 7 p.m. The match will serve as Senior Night, with t-shirts and pizza for the first 200 student fans in attendance. Tickets for the final regular season home contest are available from the Triton Box Office.
The following night, both squads wrap up their regular seasons in Long Beach.
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 Conference 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 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in Divisions I and II.
