The UCSD men’s volleyball team will miss two of its seniors next year. The experience and leadership of Jordan Hove and Griffin Cogorno will be hard for head coach Ron Larsen to replace on next year’s squad.
Hove began playing volleyball at a young age, and the Tritons have been reaping the benefits of Hove’s experience since the beginning of his tenure at UCSD. As a freshman, Hove played in 57 of 82 games, in the positions of outside hitter and setter.
Hove’s leadership qualities were showcased during his sophomore year, when he predominantly played the setter position. Hove’s number of attacks and kills went down, but his play was crucial to the team’s success.
In Hove’s junior and senior seasons, he was clearly a leader for the Tritons. In his final season, Hove had 44 kills and 1,024 assists for the year.
“”Jordan has clearly been one of the team leaders,”” Larsen said. “”At the setting spot, he’s going to touch the ball just about every time.””
Cogorno played just two seasons with UCSD after transferring before his junior year. During his first season on the team, Cogorno proved to be a strong hitter, accumulating 227 kills over the course of the year.
Larsen was counting on Cogorno’s play to bring success to the Tritons this season. However, Cogorno was hindered by an injury. The injury kept him out of many practices, and it prevented him from bringing his game to its full potential.
Cogorno played in just 75 of 98 games this season. Even with his limited practicing time, Cogorno still averaged 2.57 kills per game.
“”He’s a powerful hitter,”” Larsen said. “”But we couldn’t have the season that we wanted to have. We really needed [Cogorno] to feel better.””
Both of these seniors have set post-graduate plans, which will be realized in just a couple of weeks. Hove plans on traveling to Europe, where he will aim to continue his volleyball career on the European tour. Cogorno might be done with the sport for a while. He is going to continue with his already up-and-running surf shop business.
Although the Triton volleyball team has not experienced a winning season during the past several years, UCSD will certainly miss Hove’s leadership and Cogorno’s court-power.
“”Both of the guys will be hard to replace,”” Larsen said.
