UC San Diego played their third game of the season this past Saturday on the road at Cal State Northridge. Despite dominating the time of possession in the first half, the Tritons committed some critical mistakes that allowed the Matadors to score several times on them and to pull away in the second half, handing UC San Diego their third loss of the season.

On the first possession of the game, the Tritons showed some improvements and their intentions, collecting the ball and marching down the field only to be stopped a mere five meters from the end zone. From there on the next twenty minutes were all CSUN, with the Matadors scoring four tries on a Tritons defense that lacked some intensity and missed some tackles. The Tritons, who were missing at least 5 starters due to injury and some bad luck responded however, scoring two tries in the final fifteen minutes of the first frame. Prop Henry Song concluded a good sequence of play from the Tritons forward by scoring UC San Diego’s first try of the game, and winger Davit Shahmanyan had a nice run of his own, overpowering a couple of CSUN players to bring the Tritons back into the game, down 28-10 at halftime.

Despite gaining momentum in the end of the first half, the Tritons could not carry it into the second half. The Tritons ran out of gas and lost a few players on injuries, and the game got out of reach after CSUN scored another couple of tries. With the commanding lead, CSUN cruised to the victory over the Tritons on the day.

UC San Diego will be back at home for their first home game of the regular season next Saturday against league-leading Claremont.