Cal Poly Volleyball went down two sets early against UC San Diego on Saturday, Sept. 23 in their second conference match this season.
The Mustangs (7-7, 1-1 Big West) rallied back to win the match 3-2 and have now completed three reverse sweeps with their most recent win over the Tritons (8-6, 0-2 Big West).
Bouncing back after losing to Long Beach State the previous night, redshirt junior outside hitter Tommi Stockham led the team in kills (18) while redshirt sophomore Emme Bullis collected 31 assists throughout.
Redshirt sophomore Lizzy Markovska added 16 kills.
The first set was back and forth until the UC San Diego went on a 10-2 run to take an 11-11 score to 21-13, allowing the Tritons to take the first set 25-18.
The Mustangs trailed behind 9-3 in the second set but tied it at 16-16. They were down 23-20 but brought the score to 24-23 only to lose the set on a kill by the Tritons.
Down 2-0, the Mustangs took the next set with somewhat dominance as they took a 12-6 lead on a five-point run that they kept for the rest of the set.
In the fourth set, the score was tied 10-10 until Cal Poly took the lead to make it 13-10. Although the Tritons kept up at a 21-19 score, Cal Poly scored four points in a row to end the set. Two of the points were kills by redshirt sophomore Annabelle Thalken assisted by Bullis.
Down 5-2 in the final set, the Mustangs tied it up at 9-9 they finished the set strong. With two final kills, the first by Thalken and the second by redshirt junior Kate Slack, the Mustangs finished on top 15-13 after being down 12-11.
The defense held the Tritons to just a .110 hitting percentage in the last four sets. Slack stacked up seven blocks followed by redshirt junior outside hitter Amy Hiatt with six.
The next match will be the conference home opener against UC Irvine on Friday, Sept. 29. UC Irvine is 1-1 in conference matches thus far and has won the last two matches against Cal Poly.