LONG BEACH, Calif. – For the second consecutive night, the top-ranked University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team fell victim to No. 2 Long Beach State in five sets in the regular season finale Saturday at the Walter Pyramid. Set scores were 25-16, 18-25, 25-13, 23-25, 15-10.
 
With the win, the 49ers (25-1, 10-0) claimed their second straight Big West regular season title and enters next week's conference tournament as the No. 1 seed.
 
The Rainbow Warriors (25-2, 8-2 BWC) suffered their only two losses of the season to the defending national champions and are the No. 2 seed in the tournament, which UH will host April 18-20 at the Stan Sheriff Center. Hawai'i will face the winner of Thursday's quarterfinal between UC Irvine and UC San Diego.
 
Senior outside hitter Stijn van Tilburg led three players in double-figure with 17 kills, hitting .294 with two aces, three digs and two blocks. Opposite Rado Parapunov added 13 kills but hit only .135 while middle blocker matched a career-high with 12 kills, hitting .550.
 
Brothers Joe Worsley and Gage Worsley each had 12 digs. UH hit .298 for the match with six aces and 6.5 team blocks. In contrast, the Beach hit .348 and tallied six aces and 15.5 blocks.
 
TJ DeFalco had a match-high 21 kills, hitting .318 with 11 digs and eight blocks. Ethan Siegfried had a career-high 16 kills, hitting .556 with 10 digs. Kyle Ensing had nine kills while middle blockers Simon Anderson (7) and Nick Amado (6) combined for 13 blocks as the Beach extended their home win streak to 41.
 
UH held an early lead in Set 1 until the Beach reeled off four straight points for a 14-11 lead. LBSU answered with another four-point spurt for an 18-13 advantage and scored five of the final six points to take the opening set. The Beach recorded 6.5 blocks and three aces in the frame, limiting UH to .040 hitting.
 
UH answered back in a big way in Set 2, using a 5-0 run to take a 14-8 lead. An ace by van Tilburg made it 16-9 and solo stuff by middle blocker Dalton Solbrig gave UH a 19-11 lead.  The Warriors would hit .500 in the set and evened the match heading into the intermission. 
 
Hawai'i came out on fire in Set 3 as Worsley started the barrage with two aces on his first two serves. The lead was 8-3 after a pair of 49ers errors and 12-5 following kills by Solbrig, van Tilburg, and Parapunov. UH made it 17-7 after a Gasman kill and the Beach had no answer. The Warriors recorded three aces and hit .625 with no errors in 24 attack attempts.
 
UH led 7-5 early in Set 4 before the Beach responded with a 4-0 run that included a pair of aces by DeFalco. UH evened it up before DeFalco went back to serve again and the 49ers surged ahead 19-16. UH would erase three set points before DeFalco pounded his 19^thkill to send the match to a fifth set.
 
In the deciding set, LBSU scored five straight with the help of consecutive UH hitting errors and a pair of DeFalco kills for a 6-2 lead. The lead was 11-4 after Hawai'i's sixth hitting error of the set. UH closed to within three at 12-9 but the 49ers scored three of the final four points to win the match.
 
The Big West Tournament begins Thursday, April 18 with a pair of quarterfinal matches. UH and LBSU have byes into Friday's semifinal. LBSU will play the 5:00 p.m. match against the winner of UC Santa Barbara and CSUN while Hawai'i will face either UC Irvine or UC San Diego in the 7:30 p.m. semifinal.