The UCSD men’s volleyball team played its last away game of the year Thursday at Long Beach before heading back to host University of La Verne Saturday at RIMAC Arena, the beginning its season-ending four-game homestand.
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Thursday saw the Tritons start a revamped lineup primarily featuring freshmen and sophomores, with head coach Ron Larsen benching his starting lineup for disciplinary reasons.
The Tritons’ inexperience showed when they committed 33 errors on the day and had an overall hitting percentage of -.062 en route to a 0-3 loss to the 49ers.
Long Beach State University took the first set 30-22 when the Tritons hurt themselves from the start with 12 kills relative to 13 errors.
The next set didn’t fare too much better, with the 49ers posting a .318 hitting percentage and the Tritons hitting -.034 for the second set.
However, UCSD did have some positives because its young team out-killed the seventh-ranked 49ers in both the first and second sets, though the Tritons were undone by both offensive and defensive errors.
In the last set, Long Beach was simply too much for the Tritons and UCSD was overpowered 30-18.
UCSD struggled with its obvious height disadvantage; Long Beach State posted 11.5 blocks in the match to UCSD’s 2.5.
Long Beach State was led by Jeff Wootton and Tim May, who ended with nine and eight kills, respectively.
T.J. Young led the Tritons with six kills, while James Kimball, Luke Honnette, Shawn Oksenendler and Andy Rupp contributed five kills apiece. Junior setter Matthew Miller also added 21 assists to the Triton effort.
The Tritons then underwent a major change in scenery, transitioning from playing in front of 975 Long Beach State fans to an announced crowd of 217 Saturday night at RIMAC arena.
UCSD responded to the familiar scenery with a dominating straight-set victory over the Leopards 30-24, 30-24, 30-22.
The Division III University of La Verne mustered only a .176 hitting percentage overall, while the Tritons had 47 total kills and hit a little better at a .298 average.
The Tritons had three players finish with double-digit kills: Eric Perrine, Griffin Cogorno and Adam Toren finished with 13, 10 and 10 kills each to lead UCSD. Setter Jordan Hove also contributed 43 assists to the winning effort, while the Tritons outblocked the Leopards 12.5 to eight.
University of La Verne was led by Jake Swann and Kavid Engle, who finished with nine and seven kills, respectively, as well as setter Scott Alley, who ended the night with 20 assists.
Tuesday the Tritons took the fourth-ranked Brigham Young University to four sets before dropping a 1-3 decision against the Cougars.
After dropping the first set 27-30, the Tritons led the defending NCAA champions 25-23 in the second set. However, BYU managed to come back and win the game 30-26. The Tritons refused to quit, however, and came back to win game three 30-23. However, BYU took the fourth set 30-26 to pull out the victory over the Tritons.
UCSD’s James Kimball had a spectacular defensive effort for the Tritons, posting 10 blocks. Jim Waller and Eric Perrine contributed 17 and 13 kills, respectively.
BYU improved to 20-5 overall and 14-5 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, and UCSD had its home game winning streak of three games snapped, and fell to 6-22 overall, 1-20 in league.
