No. 10 UC San Diego men’s volleyball (10-5, 1-0 Big West) defeated Vanguard (4-11, 0-4 MPSF) in four sets on Friday at LionTree Arena. The victory tasted like sweet revenge, as the Tritons had lost to the same Vanguard team in a five-set thriller two days earlier.
“Yeah, we knew we didn’t play our best volleyball [on Wednesday],” junior outside hitter Sebastiano Sani said in a postgame interview with The UCSD Guardian. “Credit to them, they’re a good team, but we knew coming into this game that we weren’t going to play like we did the other day. I thought we responded really well.”
Opening the first set, Vanguard jumped to an early lead, but UCSD settled in as redshirt senior opposite hitter Luke Chandler dropped in a kill. Sani quickly made his presence known with a smooth back-row attack. Redshirt senior middle blocker Peter Selcho stuffed a Lion swing at the net, and Sani caught fire from the service line, dropping in an ace to give UCSD a 7-4 edge. He added another back-row kill to keep the pressure on.
Even after a Vanguard timeout, UCSD stayed aggressive — with Sani rising up for another block and redshirt junior outside hitter Leo Pravednikov cleverly tipping the ball on a broken play to keep the Lions scrambling.
Despite the Tritons’ potent attack, Vanguard began chipping away at UCSD’s lead late in the first set. The Lions began finding creative ways to get around the Triton block, tooling it to force a tip out of bounds. Suddenly, tied at 23, the Tritons were at the risk of letting the set they had largely controlled slip away. Vanguard earned set point, but Chandler responded with a clutch kill to extend the set. After another Vanguard point, Sani stepped up to rescue the Tritons. He followed a kill with an ace, swinging the advantage to UCSD. After an errant serve leveled the game, Pravednikov spiked a ball on the outside, and redshirt senior middle blocker Jim Garrison delivered a thunderous block to seal a hard-fought 28-26 first-set win.
The second set began with Sani tallying back-to-back kills, but the Lions answered with a 4-point surge. The Tritons came back to tie the set 5-5. From that point, neither team led by more than a point, trading kills back and forth until they were tied at 11. UCSD was finally able to create a bit of separation after Selcho put away a quick set in the middle and a Sani aced to force a Vanguard timeout.
The Lions stormed out of the break with another four unanswered points to recapture the lead. Chandler quickly flipped the momentum with a kill and two consecutive aces in a personal 3-point swing. Sani slammed down two more kills to bring the Tritons to set point. Pravednikov finished off the set, giving it to the Tritons 25-21.
The Tritons carried their energy into the third set. Sani opened with yet another kill, and Selcho powered home a quick set to spark a 5-1 start. Redshirt junior outside hitter Josh Ewert, seeing limited minutes after coming off injury, made an immediate impact in his first minutes of the night in the third set, using a crafty tip over the block for his first kill. However, Vanguard began to exploit the middle of the floor with soft shots that the Tritons were slow to react to. A back-row attack tied the set at 23, and Vanguard earned set point. Vanguard secured a block to take the third set 26-24.
The fourth set saw Ewert deliver immediately. He opened with a kill and later added another to give UCSD a 6-5 lead. His surge helped the Tritons build a 15-12 advantage and forced a Lion timeout. Pravednikov kept the momentum rolling with an ace out of the break. Yet, once again, Vanguard battled back to tie the score at 18. UCSD’s 23 service errors compared to the Lions’ 13 kept the door open all night. Despite the disparity in serving consistency, UCSD reached set point first, clinging to a narrow lead.
Fittingly, it was Sani who ended it. He rose for one final swing and buried it to seal the set 25-23 and the match. He finished with a game-high 19 kills, capping a night where he consistently delivered in the biggest moments.
“Vanguard has big players, so there’s a lot of hands to hit,” Sani said. “I was just swinging high; it happened to work.”
The Tritons swept Cal State Northridge in straight sets in their first Big West conference game on Tuesday at LionTree Arena. Looking to keep up the momentum, UCSD will head up the coast to face Santa Barbara on Friday.
“We can beat any team we come across,” Sani said. “Just keeping the spirit high as a team, working as a team, and everything will click.”
