SANTA CRUZ, Ca. – The UC Santa Cruz men's volleyball team dropped a tightly contest battle 3-1 (25-27, 26-24, 25-19, 28-26) to the No. 3 Cal Lutheran Kingsmen. Dylan Foreman led the team with 21 kills and a .389 hitting percentage while Riley Norman had 14 kills on the night. Logan Taylor and Andrew Pak were nearly even with assists with 24 and 21, respectively while Marcus Donchuanchom anchored the defense with 15 digs with David Polster and Norman both recording 10. The No. 15 ranked UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs will be back in action tomorrow night when they host No. 8 Carthage at 6:00 p.m.
 
How It Happened
The Banana Slugs struck first with a kill from Ethan Makishima in front of a packed West Field House crowd. The opening portion of the set was a back and forth battle featuring 10 ties before Cal Lutheran managed to go on a 4-0 run and force the Slugs to take a timeout, trailing 14-11. The Kingsmen continued to push forward, using a 6-3 run out of the break to extend their lead to 20-14. Momentum began to change as the Slugs went on a 4-1 run to counter, cutting the lead to 21-18 to force a CLU timeout. The run saw kills from Logan Taylor, David Polster, and Dylan Foreman. The break slowed the attack with Cal Lutheran fighting to a 23-19 to force another UCSC break. The timeout resulted in a Kingsmen service error that sparked a thrilling 8-2 Banana Slugs run to give UCSC the hard fought 27-25 set one win.
 
The Kingsmen were able to take the remaining three sets on the night to earn the 3-1 victory over the Slugs, but each set was closely contested from start to finish. In the second set, UCSC fell behind 20-14, just like set one, and managed to storm back and cut the deficit to 21-20 but the Kingsmen held on late, taking set two 26-24. The Kingsmen were able to take set three 25-19, fending off another late run from UCSC as the Slugs fought as close as 20-18 before CLU pulled away.
 
UC Santa Cruz held momentum for much of set four as they took an early 7-4 lead before the Kingsmen responded to regain the lead midway through the set at 10-9. The Slugs began to press forward down the stretch, taking a 19-17 lead to force a CLU timeout. The Slugs managed to have a set point at 24-23 but the Kingsmen escaped and navigated their way to a 28-26 win following a late 4-2 run, sealing the 3-1 win over UC Santa Cruz.