WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL — The UCSD women’s volleyball team is getting back to where they want to be. A a pair of weekend wins put the Tritons are above .500 in conference play and in the thick of the playoff race.
“I think we need to win all of our matches, and we need to beat all the teams we lost to in five games in the first half of the season,” head coach Ricci Luyties said. “I think our chances are good. I think they believe they can beat anybody, and I hope they know on any night we could lose to anybody if we’re not playing well. We’ve been through the first half of the season and we’ve learned from it.”
The Tritons recorded a 3-2 win against Sonoma State on Friday, breaking a streak of four straight losses in matches that went to a fifth game. UCSD won with set scores of 25-23, 25-21, 22-25, 20-25 and 15-8. The team then traveled to Humboldt State on Saturday, where they picked up a relatively easy 3-1 win with set scores of 25-15, 22-25, 25-19 and 25-14.
The Tritons won the first two sets, but allowed the Seawolves to force a fifth game after dropping the next two. However, the Tritons shot out to a 6-0 lead in the final set, eventually taking the set and the match.
“I didn’t like going five [sets] because we won the first two,” Luyties said. “But I think that was good for our team, to get that out and be successful. I really think we played well in game five too, so that was a nice change from our past games.”
Junior Roxy Brunsting led the way for the Tritons, as she recorded her first career triple-double with 16 kills, 33 assists and 17 digs.
“She set very well, she had a lot of key kills at the end of games and she played great defense,” Luyties said. “That’s pretty much everything we could want from a player.”
Brunsting continued her outstanding weekend against Humboldt, recording her second consecutive triple-double with 12 kills, 20 assists and 16 digs. With junior outside hitter Katie Condon adding a match-high 14 kills, the Tritons limited Humboldt to an abysmal .023 hitting percentage and UCSD registered its third straight win.
With these wins, the Tritons moved to 10-7 overall and 7-6 in the CCAA. UCSD is above .500 in conference for the first time since Sept. 15, and now sit in fourth place in the standings with nine matches remaining in the regular season.
The Tritons will return home this weekend to square off against San Francisco State and Cal State Monterey Bay. The matches will be on Friday and Saturday, respectively, with each beginning at 7 p.m.
