MEN’S VOLLEYBALL ‘mdash; The No. 10 Tritons were victim to a bizarre play in their four-game loss to No. 5 Stanford University last weekend, but at least they got some airtime out of it.
During the match, the Cardinal dug out what looked to be a Triton kill before Stanford defensive specialist Erik Shoji set up a Cardinal score with what ESPN’s SportsCenter called a ‘kick assist.’
Just like it sounds, Shoji kicked the ball up right before it hit the ground, allowing his teammate to send down a kill, causing the Stanford faithful in attendance at RIMAC Arena into a frenzy.
Sophomore middle blocker Calvin Ross, who was on the bench at the time of the play, wasn’t even sure what had occured.
‘All I knew was something really crazy happened because of the way the other team reacted, but I couldn’t really see it,’ he said.
The play took the No. 2 spot on SportsCenter’s April 7 top 10 plays of the day, garnering attention from ESPN for an NCAA sport that generally goes unnoticed. More impressively, it beat out all but one play from Major League Baseball’s opening day.
UCSD goes up against No. 3 Cal State Northridge on April 10 at 7 p.m. in RIMAC Arena.
Readers can contact Janani Sridharan at [email protected].