After losing a tough match against California Baptist on Jan. 16, the Tritons bounced back to upset the University of Southern Cal on Jan. 17 in four games.
At Cal Baptist in Riverside, Calif., UCSD came out with a strong 30-25 first game.
The Tritons had game point at 29-28 in the second game, threatening to open up a daunting 2-0 lead against a team they hadn¹t beaten in four previous attempts away from San Diego. However, two straight points and a Triton hitting error evened up the match at one game apiece, and Cal Baptist didn¹t look back the rest of the match. Final game scores were 25-30, 31-29, 30-25 and 30-20.
Senior opposite Jim Waller paced the Tritons with a match-high 22 kills. He also pitched in nine digs and five blocks. The two outside hitters, sophomore Jeff Urton and junior Adam Toren, recorded 12 kills apiece. Toren and senior middle blocker Andy Rupp joined Waller with the match high of five blocks. Junior Dickens Tai had a match high 12 digs, with junior setter Nate Jones contributing 43 assists.
The Tritons put the loss behind them and prepared for their Mountain Pacific Sports Federation league opener against USC. Toren led the way for UCSD in the second game of the weekend with 21 kills to lead all players. Senior middle Kevin Keyser had 13 kills and only one hitting error, yielding a team leading .480 percentage. Jones had 57 assists and Tai had nine digs, both match highs.
UCSD trailed in the first game 23-22 before calling a timeout. Out of the timeout, the Tritons scored the next three points and eventually lead 28-25, marking the first time either team had opened a lead of more than two points in the tightly contested game. UCSD finished off the game with two kills from Urton.
USC seemed to be in control of the second game with a 17-13 advantage. The Tritons, however, scored five straight points to take the lead, four of which came off of Waller¹s serves. The Trojans cruised into the third game and looked to steal the momentum from UCSD in the fourth, blazing out to a 9-2 lead. But again, USC was unable to keep its advantage and squandered the lead to a surging Triton team. Consecutive kills by Keyser and junior outside hitter John Daze finally put the match away.
The victory opened up MPSF conference play for UCSD with a 1-0 start, matching the amount of conference wins the Tritons had all of last year. Their win in 2003 also came against USC in Los Angeles.
UCSD is 2-1 overall and faces a daunting schedule ahead. The team returns to La Jolla for a three-match homestand, opening with conference foes Pacific and Stanford on Jan. 23 and Jan. 24, respectively. The Tritons round out the weekend with a nonconference match against Princeton on Jan. 26.
