The UCSD men’s volleyball team ended its season by beating National Association of Intercollegiate Athletes nonconference opponent California Baptist University 3-0 on Saturday. The Tritons also dropped their second-straight 0-3 decision to fourth-ranked Brigham Young University last Wednesday.
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During the second leg of the two-game series, the Tritons struggled with errors, finishing with an overall hitting percentage of .152 while Brigham Young hit .344.
The first set against the Cougars saw the Tritons battle back and forth with BYU during the whole set, with no team gaining more than a four-point lead.
After taking a 17-15 lead, the Tritons let the Cougars back in the game, committing four errors and giving BYU a 25-21 advantage.
From there the Tritons, led by Jim Waller and Eric Perrine, clawed their way back to a 27-27 tie, however, a kill by Jaime Mayol finished off UCSD 30-28.
The 13 ties in the next game demonstrated the even play from both teams. However once again UCSD fell late in the game, and three errors and a BYU kill snapped a 17-17 tie and helped the Cougars to pull away for the 30-25 victory.
Game three saw the Tritons grab the lead until the Cougars came back to tie the game at 13.
The two teams traded one-point leads until the Cougars finally pulled away into a 21-19 lead. From there it was all BYU, who reeled off four consecutive points to win the set 30-24 and the game 3-0.
Perrine posted a team-high 11 kills in the losing effort, while setter Jordan Hove contributed 37 assists.
In Saturday’s season finale, the Tritons hosted Cal Baptist in an attempt to end their season on a winning note.
Played in front of 378 fans on Senior Night, game one was extremely close, with the two teams battling to 19 ties in the first set.
However, after their last tie at 25 apiece, the Tritons used kills by Perrine, Waller and Hove to earn the 30-27 first-set win.
In the second game the Tritons took care of business early, scoring six straight points to jump ahead 10-4 after an initial 4-4 tie.
From there UCSD cruised to a 30-24 win, hitting .297 as a team in the second set.
UCSD duplicated the same hitting percentage in the third set, relative to the .091 percentage of Cal Baptist.
In the third game, UCSD again was too much for Cal Baptist. After a 11-11 tie, the Tritons capitalized on errors by CBU and a couple Waller kills to jump to a 21-14 lead.
However, Cal Baptist went on a 8-1 run and came back to forge a 22-22 tie.
From there Waller posted four kills and Perrine posted two to assure the Tritons of victory.
With the nonconference win, the Tritons finish the season 7-23 overall, 1-21 in conference, which improved upon their 6-21 (0-17 in conference) finish the year before.
