LA JOLLA, Calif. – The No. 5 University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team dropped its regular season finale to UC San Diego in straight sets Saturday at LionTree Arena. Set scores were 27-25, 25-21, 25-20.
 
The Rainbow Warriors (22-6, 5-5 BWC), which already clinched the No. 3 seed in next week's tournament, fell to the Tritons for the third time in the last four seasons. UH will face sixth-seeded UC Santa Barbara in Thursday's quarterfinals at SimpliFi Arena.
 
Keoni Thiim led the way for Hawai'i with 12 kills, hitting .455. The Honolulu native also had three aces, five digs, and two blocks. Chaz Galloway came off the bench and added seven kills on .429 hitting while Alaka'i Todd and Guilherme Voss each had six kills.
 
The difference in the match was at the service line where the Tritons (12-14, 4-6) served nine aces, the most by a UH opponent this season. In contrast, UH, who served 10 aces on Friday, had only four.
 
UCSD was led by Sebastian Lara, who posted a match-high 14 kills, hitting .479. Anthony Cherfan added 13 kills and two aces while Jim Garrison served four aces. The Tritons are the No. 4 seed in the Big West Championship and will meet No. 5 seed CSUN in a quarterfinal match.
 
UH hit .337 for the match compared to .352 for UCSD. The Tritons also out-blocked the Warriors, 8 to 7.
 
In Set 1, UH scored the first four points but the Tritons answered scoring six of the next seven. UCSD led by as many as four at 20-16 but the Warriors scored five straight to retake the lead. UH had set point at 24-23 after a kill by Voss but the Tritons scored consecutive points, including a block of Todd to get to their own set point. The teams traded service errors and the Tritons put away the set with a kill by Lara.
 
The Tritons used two early aces for a 5-4 lead in Set 2. Hawai'i took a 10-7 lead after a Sakanoko kill but the Tritons evened the score at 11 and took an 18-12 lead with a 7-0 scoring run. Galloway entered the lineup and scored on back-to-back kills to pull the Warriors to within four but that was as close as they would get. Garrison finished with three aces in the set.
 
The teams battled back and forth in the third set until the Tritons scored six of the next seven points for a 20-15 lead. UCSD added three more aces in the set and hit .611 to close out the sweep.
 
The Big West Championship tournament begins Thursday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. The top two seeds are Long Beach State and UC Irvine, who both earned byes to the semifinals.