LA JOLLA, Calif. -- UC San Diego (4-0) made 8-11 attempts from the field at the start of the second half to build some separation from the Navy men's basketball team (0-3) in an eventual 73-55 win by the Tritons over the Mids, Saturday at LionTree Arena, in La Jolla, Calif.

"We had too many mental mistakes," said Navy head coach Ed DeChellis.  "That, combined with poor shooting, is not a recipe for winning."

The teams were tied at 19-19 with eight minutes left before halftime when UC San Diego scored each of the next six and nine of the next 11 points to take a 28-21 lead with four minutes still to play.  The margin grew to as many as eight points (30-22) before a late triple by Austin Inge made the score 31-25 at halftime.

The Tritons made just one more field goal than the Mids in the first half, 10-9, but the home team was 5-18 from three-point range in contrast to the 2-10 effort from long range by the visitors.  

It was a 40-35 UCSD lead early in the second half when it went on a 16-3 run to extend the advantage to 56-38 with a little more than 10 minutes still to play.  The Tritons were 6-6 from the field during the five-minute run while the Mids were 1-7.

The margin remained double figures over the rest of the game.

UCSD shot 57.1 percent (16-28) from the field in the second half and held Navy to a 33.3 percent effort (9-27).  The Mids ended the game shooting 33.3 percent from the floor and the Tritons made 47.3 percent of their shots for the 40 minutes.

Each team grabbed 34 rebounds, Navy won the turnover statistics by one (12-13) and each team made 13 foul shots.

Mitch Fischer, who had scored a combined 13 points in Navy's first two games of the year, scored a career-high 13 points this evening to lead the Mids in scoring.  He was joined in double figures by Austin Benigni with 11 points.

Navy will remain in town for a few more days as the Mids will play Monday night at San Diego.