UC Slam Diego Men’s Club Volleyball Season Opener
UC San Diego Men’s Club Volleyball team had their first league matches of the season this past weekend with round robin play at CSU Fullerton. The gentlemen of UC Slam Diego started their season off on the right foot, for once, by defeating the newest addition to the Division 1 Southern California Collegiate Volleyball League, Chapman University, with every player getting a chance to slam. This was all possible due to our coach, Kevin ‘Trombz’ Trombley, enacting a rotation technique which he calls “Bone-Head Volleyball.” This means that whenever a player makes a bone-headed play, he subs himself out for the next person in line.
The first sub occurred very early in the first game when President and Captain, Chris ‘Griebs’ Griebenow, attempted to attack a ball which he had little-to-no business swinging at, resulting in the ball sailing way, way out of bounds. Some say the ball is still in the air to this day. He was replaced by freshman Chris ‘Shaft’ Shaffer, who managed to play it smart and safe to stay on the court, much to the chagrin of President Griebs. Shortly after, ‘BD’ Nic Maroun made the silly mistake of missing his serve, giving David ‘Where’s Jerry?’ Rodriguez a chance to steal the spotlight. After two small mistakes, third time was the charm for David when he made a play in true bone-head fashion allowing Richard ‘404 Name Not Found’ Zheng to finish out the game. President and Captain Jordan ‘BBB’ King hit a ball slightly long during the first game, giving Mahdi ‘Maughty’ Younis the opportunity to slam in his place. Early in the second game, President Griebs was subbed back in after Richard made an unforced error, and he didn’t come off the court for the rest of the day. Late in the third game, on UC Slam Diego’s match point, Senior libero Joe ‘Sleepy’ Guarnes watched a ball drop in front of him that shouldn’t have dropped uncontested in his lifetime, granting Tim ‘Pledge’ Green the honor of being on the court when Chapman missed their serve, handing us the win. With no one to sub in for them, setter Jon ‘Nic?’ Maroun and middles Jeff ‘Somehow Always a Starter’ Meng and Connor ‘Brother Barry’ Barry were free to make all the errors their hearts desired. Brother Barry received hugs from the bench each time he missed a serve. Many hugs were given to him that day.
The Tritons changed up their lineup a little, moving President Griebs from the outside to opposite, President BBB King from opposite to middle, and having Maughty and BD Nic share an outside spot, and faced off against their local rival, SDSU, without a break. The fresh SDSU team barely won the first game, but then pulled ahead early in the second and took the match.
Then, UC Slam Diego went up against University of Arizona with basically the same lineup, only leaving BD Nic in all the way around and Sleepy electing to let Pledge play instead of him. Unfortunately, the Tritons lost this match as well.
The last match of the day paired the gentlemen of UC Slam Diego Tritons against the hosting club, the CSU Fullerton Titans. Trombz shifted the Presidents back to outside and opposite, put Sleepy back in, and left Shaft as the other outside for their final match of the day. After playing three matches in a row before this and having a record of 1-2 for the day thus far, the Tritons were going up against more than just a strong opposing team. The resourceful gentlemen found some bootstraps, pulled themselves up by them, and slammed against CSU Fullerton, ending the day on a win and a 2-2 record.
Although not the result that the Tritons were looking for, the tournament was a useful tool for configuring and testing different lineups for the tournaments to come. Their next tournament is this Saturday, January 30th, in the AUX Gym in RIMAC, starting at 9 AM.
