Over the weekend of January 20th and 21st UCSD Club volleyball participated in the MLK tournament, the second in the Triple Crown series. UCSD Men’s B entered the tournament seeded 14th overall and competed as a two seed with University of Arizona A, University of Denver A, and UCSB C as the first, third, and fourth seeds respectively. UCSD took a clean win over UCSB in two sets and followed up the performance with another two-set game against Denver. In their final match, they put up a fight against Arizona, but ultimately couldn’t upset the first seed and ended the day holding their position and staying in the running for the Gold Division. 

On day two they began with a crossover match with the winner of another pool, which ended up being Cal Poly SLO B. SLO entered the pool as a third seed on the first day and upset UCLA A and Utah Valley A to make it to their position, but couldn’t keep their streak going as B team beat them in 2 sets to make it into the gold bracket. Their next game was in round one of the Gold bracket against Arizona State A, who UCSD couldn’t quite keep up with. ASU would continue their bracket run into the finals where they lost in a 3-set match to UCSB A. In the end, UCSD B put up a strong showing by finishing the tournament tied for 5th, alongside UC Irvine A, Utah Valley A, and USC A, as well as being the only B team to make it into Gold.

UCSD A Team came into the tournament as the 4th overall seed after there 3rd place finish at the last tournament.  There first day pool presented no challenges as they overcame a solid ASU B team, UCSB B team, and Cal Poly Pomona A team.  This cemented the A team in the gold bracket for the second day of the tournament.

The second day would be a lot more difficult with only the best teams having advanced to the gold bracket.  The A team rallied to defeat a very well coached Utah Valley Team in the third set 15>13. The A team was now battling for a spot in the finals in this next match.  Unfortunately, their run ran out when they faced a tough UCSB A team.  They were defeated in two straight sets, but ended up placing 3rd in the whole tournament.  Overall, a strong performance from both teams!