CHICAGO — No. 11 UC San Diego men's volleyball's Chicago road trip came to a close on Saturday night with a 3-1 loss at No. 7 Loyola Chicago. Set scores were 25-20, 21-25, 25-22, 25-22 in favor of the Ramblers.
 
Sebastiano Sani led the Tritons with 17 kills while hitting .375. Peter Selcho had six kills, hit .667 and registered five blocks (one solo). Fellow middle blocker Jim Garrison had four blocks (one solo).
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Loyola led wire-to-wire in set one. The closest the Tritons got was down two at 14-16, but the visitors were unable to come all the way back as the hosts eventually had a comfortable 25-20 victory. The Ramblers hit .536 in the first while UC San Diego hit .241.
 
The Tritons flipped the script in set two, hitting .368 while holding Loyola to a .161 clip. The Ramblers led 13-10 early until a timeout got the Tritons going for the rest of the set. They fought back to tie the set at 15, with the score tied again later at 18 until the Tritons went on a 5-0 run to lead 23-18. That gap was enough to see the Tritons take set two 25-21. Sani had three kills and two blocks down the stretch, with Selcho also registering a pair of blocks late.
 
Set three featured 15 ties and seven lead changes, with the score knotted for the final time at 20-all. Loyola pulled in front 23-22 and then put the set away with a kill and block to win 25-22. The Tritons' best stretch of the third came when they led 17-14 after a kill by Luke Chandler and an attack error by the Ramblers. But a Loyola timeout helped the hosts wins the next four points before going on to win the set.
 
The fourth set started with a 9-0 run by Loyola that proved to be the difference as the Ramblers went on to win 25-22. The Tritons did well to fight back after the early deficit, hitting .417 in the set and getting as close as one at the 18-19 mark. UC San Diego won three-straight rallies to get to that point, which came off kills by Garrison and Sani and a solo block by Garrison. The hosts then responded with two kills of their own to keep the Tritons at bay for the rest of the set.
 
TRITON TIDBITS

• Leo Pravednikov returned to the starting lineup after missing the last two matches with an injury.
• Sani's 17 kills are a new career high for the junior.
• Loyola outside hitter Josh Schellinger played for UC San Diego from 2022-25.
• The Tritons did not have an ace for the first time this season. Their previous season-low was four.

QUOTABLE
"Tonight was a tough battle," head coach Brad Rostratter said. "I am really proud of our ability to learn to continue to fight and grow together, but ultimately we were not able to play consistently and steadily enough throughout the course of the match. We saw some really good glimpses of us playing some extremely high-level volleyball and doing a lot of things well, but there were just some stretches where we were not quite at that level consistently enough."

UP NEXT
The Tritons have a week off before returning to LionTree Arena to host Concordia Irvine on Feb. 11. The two teams will then square off in Irvine on Feb. 12.
 
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 has begun a new era as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 24-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 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 39 have garnered 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 NCAA Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.