BOX SCORE
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — For as well as the Cal State Monterey Bay volleyball team has played this season, it's sometimes easy to forgot that the Otters are still an incredibly young team. After they had leveled their match against the nation's No. 16 ranked team Friday night, a veteran Cal State San Bernardino squad gave the upstarts from Monterey a reminder.

CSUMB took just its second set ever against the perennial national power, but the Coyotes stormed back from that loss to hand the Otters at 25–21, 18–25, 25–15, 25–7 setback in The Den on the CSUSB campus.

CSUMB (11–5, 5–3 CCAA) saw its season–high 5–match winning streak come to an end. San Bernardino (12–4, 8–0) won its eighth in a row.

The Otters hung tough early, forging a 20–20 tie in the first set before San Bernardino scored five of the final six points to take the early lead. CSUMB went on a 7–2 run early in the second set and the Coyotes never threatened the Otter lead as the young ones tied the match at a set apiece.

But the 10–minute intermission between sets two and three provided just the tonic San Bernardino needed to get back on track. It opened the third set on fire, racing to a 13–4 lead en route to the 10–point win. The fourth set began in exactly the same fashion, only this time after taking a 13–4 lead the Coyotes closed with a 12–3 run to put an exclamation point on the win.

CSUMB got a team–high 12 kills from sophomore Jessica Malcolm (Lodi HS), her 14th double–digit effort in 16 matches this season. Junior Julia Ashen (North Salinas HS) added 10 kills while senior Lacee Ventura (Salinas HS) served a pair of aces.

CSUMB jumps from the frying pan into the fire Saturday night when it heads down I–15 to take on No. 11 ranked UC San Diego in La Jolla. The Otters return home to host San Francisco State Oct. 18 in The Kelp Bed.