NAPERVILLE, Ill. – The No. 15 UC Santa Cruz men's volleyball team suffered a hard fought 3-1 (23-25, 29-27, 28-26, 25-19) loss to the No. 14 North Central Cardinals on Wednesday evening, ending UCSC's 10-game win streak. As a team, UC Santa Cruz hit at a .233 clip with 61 kills on the night while North Central hit at a .280 clip with 55 kills on the night. Dylan Foreman led the team with 19 kills while Riley Norman recorded 15 with Norman anchoring the defense with 14 digs. Caio Valente also had a strong showing, dishing out 45 assists while recording nine digs. With the loss, UC Santa Cruz is now 17-6 on the season and will be back in action on Mar. 28 at 5pm PST with a match against Benedictine in Lisle, Illinois.
 
How It Happened
The Banana Slugs took set one 25-23 in a narrowly contested game to get the night started. UCSC started the night on a 4-2 run but the Cardinals and Slugs quickly went back and forth, working to a 14-14 tie before the Slugs could go up by two with a kill from Kyle Ownbey. NCC responded with a 5-2 run to take the lead at 19-18, forcing a UCSC timeout. Out of the break, Dylan Foreman and Nico Espinoza both recorded kills to highlight a 3-0 run for UCSC, putting them on top 21-19 to force a NCC timeout. The Slugs were able to go an even 4-4 in points down the stretch with the Cardinals to take the first set 25-23.
 
Set two played out much like set one with the game featuring 17 ties until we reached the 20-20 mark with UCSC calling a timeout, trailing 22-20 after a quick 2-0 run from NCC. Out of the break, the Banana Slugs earned a slight 5-3 edge to tie the game at 25-25 with kills from Dylan Foreman and Nico Espinoza. UCSC used a service ace from Espinoza to go up 26-25 and later led 27-26 with a kill from Riley Norman but the Cardinals took set two 29-27 after fighting for three straight points down the stretch.
 
The Cardinals had the early advantage in set three, starting the game on a 5-3 run before extending their lead to 15-12. From there, the Slugs rallied back with a 5-2 run to tie things at 17-17 before taking three of the next four points to go up 20-18 and force a NCC timeout. Out of the break, the Cardinals went on a 10-6 run with the Slugs fighting off the pressure to extend the set but ultimately UCSC fell 28-26 with NCC going up 2-1 in the match.
 
The Slugs fell behind early in set four as NCC started things with a 9-5 run before working to a 13-8 lead to force a UCSC timeout. The two teams went back and forth with NCC earning a slight 6-5 edge to force UCSC to call their second timeout, trailing 19-13. The Banana Slugs took the first two points out of the break to cut the lead to 19-15 with back to back kills from Ethan Makishima but a 6-4 run from NCC ended the set 25-19, handing the Slugs a 3-1 loss.