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IRVINE, Calif. – The No. 6 University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team fell to No. 4 UC Irvine, 16-25, 22-25, 21-25 in three sets, Wednesday night at the Bren Center. UH drops to a 5-2, 2-1 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation record.
 
UCI (9-2, 4-1 MPSF) outhit the Rainbow Warriors .341 (41-13-82) to .084 (26-19-83), with UH giving away a total of 34-points due to errors towards the Anteaters' 3-0 sweep. Despite Taylor Averill's errorless night hitting at .600 (6-0-10), and a team-high eight kills by Sinisa Zarkovic, the Warriors were unable to match-up to the 'Eaters, led by Kyle Russell (11 kills) and Zack La Cavera (10 kills).
 
Midway through Set 1, UCI broke away from UH following a 5-2 run, taking a commanding 12-7 lead over the Warriors. The 'Bows matched the Anteaters point-for-point, and eventually cut their lead down 18-14 after back-to-back UCI errors. However, the 'Eaters quickly made up for it with four unanswered points, igniting a 7-2 run to win the first set, 25-16.
 
UH started out Set 2 with a slight edge over UCI until the Anteaters scored four in a row, stealing the lead 8-6 over the Warriors. Halfway through, UH netted five unanswered points to take a 15-14 lead, with Averill dishing out two service aces, assisted by two UCI errors and a kill by Zarkovic.  The score was tied four more times to follow, but the 'Eaters ultimately pulled away with a 5-2 run to finish off Set 2, 25-22.
 
The teams tied a total of 19 times in Set 3, matching each other error-for-error, with UCI committing 13 total (five attack errors, eight service errors) and UH committing 11 (seven attack errors, four service errors). In the final stretch, the Anteaters powered through with a 7-1 run over the 'Bows, finally pulling the curtain on a messy final set to defeat UH for the 11^th time in a row.
 
 The Warriors will face the Anteaters again on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. PT at the Bren Center for game two of the conference series.