Jan. 31, 2003

UC San Diego was defeated by visiting USC in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's volleyball action at UCSD's RIMAC Arena Friday night, 3-2. Game scores were 22-30, 30-21, 24-30, 30-28, 15-7.

In the opening game, the 15th-ranked Tritons ran out to a 14-4 lead on the strength of strong serving, with three aces coming from junior opposite Jim Waller and another from sophomore outside hitter T.J. Young. USC never got within six points the rest of the way.

In game two, the Trojans hit just .111, but stepped up their defense, gaining credit for 9.5 total team blocks in cruising to a 30-21 win and evening the match at 1-1. Senior middle Josh Day had six block assists.

UCSD jumped out to early leads of 4-0 and 9-3 in the third game, and kept the visitors at a distance from then on, hitting .342 as a team.

In an extremely tight game four, neither team held a lead of greater than three points, and the score was tied 11 times. The Tritons got the upper hand at 23-21 on a kill by sophomore middle Kevin Keyser before USC scored the next four points to take a 25-23 lead. Young later served three straight points for the home side, culminating in a kill by sophomore outside hitter Adam Toren which gave the Tritons back the advantage at 28-27. The Trojans fought back once again, however, and tallied the last three points on a kill by junior outside hitter Phil Jordan and two Triton errors in forcing a fifth and deciding game.

The Trojans never trailed in game five, taking control at 11-6 before closing out the match following a UCSD timeout.

Senior outside hitter Mark Dusharme provided 15 kills for the Trojans while Day totalled 11 kills and a match-high 10 blocks. Freshman libero Joao Grangeiro had a match-high 14 digs with senior setter Miles McGann dishing out 45 assists to go with six kills, two aces, six digs and seven blocks.

Waller produced a match-high 26 kills in the match for the Tritons, while Young finished with 12 kills, with both players serving four aces. Waller also collected a team-best six blocks. Senior setter Eric Perrine had 52 assists and seven digs with sophomore Dickens Tai notching 13 digs.

After effective serving early, the Tritons totalled 28 service errors on the evening. UCSD out-hit USC, .207-.202, but were out-blocked 18.5-11.

With its first MPSF victory of the 2003 season, USC improved its record to 2-6 overall, 1-4 in conference play. UCSD fell to 3-5 overall, 0-4 in the league. The loss snapped a string of three straight wins at home over Division I foes for the Division II Tritons.

UCSD is right back on the court tomorrow night, hosting 2002 NCAA National Runner-Up Pepperdine. The Waves moved up from ninth to fourth in this week's national rankings. First serve is set for 7:00 PM at RIMAC Arena.