HONOLULU - The UC San Diego men's volleyball team opened its season with a 3-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) loss against No. 11 Hawaii in front of 2,796 fans at the Stan Sheriff Center Thursday.

Scores were 25-16, 25-20 and 25-20 in the first match of the season for both teams.

The Warriors out-blocked the Tritons 11 to five and forced UCSD to finish with a .000 hitting percentage on 26 kills and 26 errors in 81 attacks. UH countered at .306 (32-10-72) as UCSD was in the negative in the first and second sets.

"Something we did really, really well tonight, as well as I've seen in a long time, we passed the ball," said UCSD head coach Kevin Ring. "If you're getting that, you want better production from your offense. A good clean hand on the ball, a hard snap, we weren't getting that tonight."

No player finished the night with more than nine kills. For UCSD, freshman opposite Chris Andrulis led in kills with six while outside hitters Carl Eberts and Vaun Lennon each had five. Eberts tacked on a pair of service aces, four digs and a block and Lennon added an ace, three digs and three blocks.

The Warriors got a match-high nine kills from Johann Timmer, who hit .571 (9-1-14). Steven Hunt and JP Marks each had eight kills. At the net, Hunt and Jarred Lofy had four blocks apiece.

Hawaii jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first set and sailed to the 25-16 win, never losing its advantage.

Serving was not the strong suit of either squad as UH committed 16 errors from the service line and UCSD was just behind with 13. Seven of the first 11 points, including the first four, of the second set were the result of a miscue from the line. The Tritons won two of the first three points, but a four-point run by Hawaii put the Warriors up 5-2. A later six point explosion by UCSD swung the score in its favor, 10-8. Eberts had two kills and Lennon had a kill and an ace in the surge. The teams traded points to make it 11-9 before Hawaii scored four straight points to take a 13-11 lead. Unfortunately, it would be the last lead of the set, and the match, for the Tritons. 

At 1-1 in the third set, a hitting error by the Tritons gave UH a 2-1 lead. The Warriors were able to hold that lead the rest of the way.

"We've been doing a lot of good things in practice but just need to get comfortable doing the same in a competitive environment," said Ring.

The Tritons get a chance at redemption Friday as the rematch is scheduled for a 9 p.m. (PT) first serve. It will be available live on Fox College Sports Pacific and UH will also provide live video and audio streams as well as live stats. For more coverage information, click here.

- UCSDtritons.com -