SAN DIEGO — San Diego volleyball led in all three sets on Saturday afternoon at the Jenny Craig Pavilion, but Pepperdine rallied each time for a 25-15, 25-22, 25-23 West Coast Conference sweep.
The Toreros (7-8, 2-3 WCC) came in leading the WCC in opponent hitting this season at .153. Pepperdine (13-4, 5-1 WCC), second in the league in hitting, hit .304 against them and held San Diego to .184. The Waves also served 10 aces, half of them by Iva Popovic, to the Toreros' five.
Nemo Beach's back-to-back kills started a 4-0 San Diego run in the first set, and Kierstyn Barton's ace capped it for an 8-5 lead. Pepperdine answered with five straight points, the last four on Ella Piskorz's serve, and never trailed again.
The Waves broke the set open from 15-12 with eight straight points, seven of them on Laine Briggs' serve, including two aces. Mariia Nikol Dvornikova had four kills in the run and seven on eight swings in the set, and Pepperdine hit .424.
San Diego led 6-1 early in the second before Pepperdine tied it with a 5-0 run that included back-to-back Eliya Dev aces. Kylie Munday later served three in a row, with kills by BayLea Sparks, Barton and Beach, to turn a 13-12 deficit into a 15-13 lead.
Barton kills accounted for San Diego's next three points, and Beach's kill made it 20-17 to force a Pepperdine timeout. The Waves came out of it with five straight, four on Tristen Raymond's serve, and closed out the set 25-22 after Sparks tied it at 22.
Meghan Scholz served San Diego from 8-8 to 11-8 in the third, with an ace in the middle of the run, and Pepperdine called timeout. Munday's ace made it 13-9, and the Toreros still led 16-14 when Popovic served three straight aces to put the Waves ahead 17-16.
Pepperdine stretched the lead to 24-20. Sparks' kill, a Lauren Lynch ace and Barton's sixth kill of the set erased three match points, but Chloe Pravednikov put the match away out of a Pepperdine timeout.
Barton led San Diego with 11 kills on .400 hitting and 12.5 points, adding eight digs and an ace. Sparks hit .750 with nine kills on 12 error-free swings, three in each set, and had a solo block and a block assist for 10.5 points.
Beach added seven kills and an ace, and Scholz had four kills, four block assists and an ace. Munday handed out 25 assists, and Lynch had a match-high 15 digs while passing 23-for-24 in serve receive.
Nikol Dvornikova led all players with 14 kills and 14.0 points, and Pravednikov added 11 kills. Piskorz hit .615 with nine kills on 13 swings, Irelynd Lorenzen was in on six blocks and Raymond had 37 assists and 10 digs.
The loss snapped San Diego's four-match winning streak against Pepperdine, which leads the all-time series 46-39, and closed a seven-match homestand in which the Toreros went 4-3.
UP NEXT
San Diego opens a four-match road trip at Seattle U on Thursday, Oct. 15, at 6 p.m. and at Portland on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 1 p.m., with both matches streaming on ESPN+.
