Things were significantly easier 24 hours later on Senior Night as UCSD rolled over Cal State Monterey Bay, 3-0 (30-20, 30-19, 30-19)...Fittingly, senior Casey Wilson had a match high 13 kills (.333) while also registering two aces...Senior setter Kim Adams handed out 38 assists, had 12 digs and a pair of aces and Facchini racked up another 26 digs to go with two aces...Facchini broke her own single season digs standard and now has 511 on the year...Bailey contributed 12 kills and as a team, the Tritons outhit the Otters, .254-.066.

WWPA TITLE DEFENSE ON TAP FOR MEN’S WATER POLO
It all boils down to this weekend for Men’s Water Polo team when it attempts to defend its Western Water Polo Assn. (WWPA) title against a field of eight opponents at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs...UCSD (10-16), the fourth seed, opens against the host team Friday at 2:00 PM...The 14th-ranked Tritons defeated the 16th-ranked Falcons, 15-14, in their only previous meeting this fall...The winner of that contest faces the winner of a game between No. 1 seed UC Davis and the survivor of a play-in game between the eighth and ninth seeds at 3:00 PM Saturday...The championship battle is Sunday at 3:00 PM...The WWPA champion advances to the NCAA Final Four, Dec. 1-2 in Palo Alto.

It was a case of too much Tim Hutten last Wednesday as nine goals from the UCI senior led the 5th-ranked Anteaters to an 18-6 triumph over UCSD...Steven Donohoe and Ben Miller accounted for two goals each...Saturday afternoon, host Pepperdine, which shares the No. 5 ranking with UCI, stopped the Tritons, 22-8...This one was decided early as the Waves raced out to an 8-1 lead and kept the foot on the floor...Chance Vermilyea and Mike Libutti scored twice apiece for the Tritons.

CROSS COUNTRY TEAMS COMPETE AT NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS SATURDAY
Rookie Coach Nate Garcia takes both the men’s and women’s Cross Country teams to the NCAA Division II Championships Saturday on the campus of Southern Missouri State in Joplin, MO...It will mark only the second time that both Triton teams have qualified for the D-II national championship meet in the same year (2003 was the first)...The women’s race, which goes off at 10:30 AM will be 6K and the men will get the gun for their 10K an hour later...Garcia will be traveling with the same 14 runners who ran in the Nov. 3 NCAA West Regional in Boise..

WOMEN’S SOCCER FALLS IN FIRST ROUND OF NCAA PLAYOFFS
A tumultuous season came to an end Thursday night in Seattle for the Women’s Soccer team which was defeated, 2-1, in overtime by CCAA rival Cal State Dominguez Hills in the first round of the NCAA Playoffs...Injuries, disrupted training and uneven play were responsible for UCSD winning just two of its last seven games after opening the season 10-0-1 and reaching a high of No. 2 in the nation...Coach Brian McManus’s side finished 2007 with a 12-4-2 ledger and won the CCAA South Division.

In the season-ending loss to Dominguez Hills, the Toros struck first, connecting in the game’s 20th minute and went into halftime with a 1-0 lead...The Tritons, who have had offensive troubles throughout the final weeks of the campaign, got the equalizer at the 66:45, junior Natasha Belak-Berger collecting her team-leading seventh goal from seniors Ali Lai and Kathy Sepulveda...But Dominguez, which out-shot UCSD, 20-12, and owned a slim advantage (5-4) in corners, finished it off 8:50 into the first overtime for their second win over the Tritons this year.

Belak-Berger (forward) and fellow junior Jessica McGovern (goalkeeper) were selected to the Daktronics All-West Region first team last week.

NIKE CUP STARTS THURSDAY FOR SWIMMING & DIVING
Prepping for this week’s Nike Cup, the team’s most significant fall meet, the Swimming & Diving teams found the going tough in Santa Barbara Saturday, suffering dual meet losses to Division I UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly...The Nike Cup (formerly Speedo Cup) will be contested Thursday through Saturday at Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach and Coach Scott McGihon plans to send 13 athletes on both the men’s and women’s side....It is typically UCSD’s primary fall NCAA qualifying meet.

In Santa Barbara last weekend, the Triton women fell to UCSB, 185-67, and to Cal Poly, 187-82...Top performers for UCSD were juniors Kendall Bohn (3rd/100 breast/1:06.81 & 4th/200 breaststroke/2:25.77), Aubrey Panis (4th/200 backstroke/2:08.97) and Erinn Deters (3rd/100 freestyle/___) and sophomore Karla Holman (2nd/100 butterfly/58.89 & 4th/200 butterfly/2:09.78) and freshman Anju Shimura (3rd/200 backstroke/2:07.75)...The 200 free relay foursome of Shimura, Deters, Ashtyn Douglas and Panis claimed second in 1:39.01.

In the men’s competition, UCSD was downed by UCSD, 184-62, and Cal Poly, 178-75...Sophomore sprinters Daniel Perdew and Todd Langland went 3-4 in both the 50 and 100 freestyles...Perdew clocked 21.52 and 47.29 respectively...Andy Islip touched fourth in the 200 breaststroke (2:13.69) and the 200 free relay unit of Scott McCoid, Perdew, Brandon Maryatt and Langland placed second with a time of 1:26.04.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PICKED FOR THIRD IN CONFERENCE RACE
The Women’s Basketball team, which won its first ever CCAA crown last winter, was tabbed to finish third in the 2007-08 conference race in the annual pres-season poll of CCAA head coaches...In tight voting, Cal State Dominguez Hills was the choice to capture this year’s title, followed by Chico State...Surprising, UCSD garnered the most first place votes...Head Coach Charity Elliott takes over for the departed Janell Jones who took last year’s squad to the NCAA Division II Final Four...Leading Elliott’s team, which is already 3-0 on the year, will be veterans Michelle Osier, Meaghan Noud, Alexis Gaskin and Alexis Mezzetta.

WOMEN’S TENNIS HAS SOLID SHOWING AT UCI INVITATIONAL
Coach Liz LaPlante called her Women’s Tennis team’s performance at last weekend’s UC Irvine Invitational “impressive”...Sporting a young roster, with limited training time behind it and as the only Division II squad in the six-team field, the Tritons were able to capture six of 14 singles matches...Six different players picked up singles wins—senior Justine Fonte, sophomore Pooja Desai and freshmen Dayla Perelman, Kimmi Dao, Valerie Tang and Taskeen Baines...UCSD starts its regular season, Feb.2 at Azusa Pacific.

WOMEN’S CREW SHOWS IMPROVEMENT
Coach Pattie Pinkerton will be breathing a little easier for the next few months after watching her Women’s Crew team make some clear strides in a scrimmage against D-1 San Diego State last weekend...The Triton varsity eight, which finished two minutes behind the Aztecs at the Nov. 4 Newport Autumn Rowing Festival, was just 18 seconds off SDSU’s pace in the scrimmage, which will be UCSD’s final outing until the re-scheduled Row for the Cure, Feb. 23.

FENCERS HOST SATURDAY MEET AT MAIN GYM
Off to an impressive start in 2007, Coach Heidi Runyan’s Fencing team hosts a four-team dual meet Saturday in UCSD’s Main Gym...League foes UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton and Cal Tech will furnish the opposition for the undefeated Tritons who are defending champions of both the men’s and women’s divisions of the Intercollegiate Fencing Conference of Southern California (IFCSC).

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