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UCI Concludes Encouraging Season

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David Kirkby | Staff Photographer
David Kirkby | Staff Photographer
Freshman Jordan DuFault finesses a kill away from the Trojan block in the Anteaters’ home playoff win.
The UC Irvine men’s volleyball team ended the season on Saturday with a 3-1 loss to third-ranked Brigham Young University in the quarterfinal round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament in Provo, Utah.
The Anteaters ended the season with a 16-15 overall record.

UCI 3 USC 1
UCI defeated USC 3-2 (24-30, 30-26, 21-30, 30-25, 15-9) in a thrilling five-set match on Wednesday at Crawford Hall.
Wilson came off the bench for the Anteaters, and recorded 10 kills and a career high four aces. Corey Yoder recorded a game high 17 kills behind a .517 hitting percentage. Cole Reinholm added 12 kills and Steller recorded eight. Harrell, Wynne, and Jordan DuFault each had seven kills and Harrell tallied a match high nine blocks. Setter Anthony Spittle had 61 assists and a career best 10 digs. Asuka added nine digs of his own.
University of Southern California capitalized on the sloppy play of the Anteaters in game one. Four consecutive UCI errors allowed USC to take a 14-10 advantage and eventually led USC to win with a 30-24 victory.
With the teams tied at 18 in game two, Wilson did what he came off the bench to do and fired an ace to put the Anteaters up 19-18. At 22-21, Reinholm hit a ball that crushed a kill. The kill built momentum that translated into a 10-5 run and a 30-26 victory. Reinholm recorded six punishing kills in the game and helped UCI to a .514 kill percentage for the game.
The Trojans would answer in game three as they turned a 16-15 Anteater advantage into a 19-16 lead. They would then cruise to a 30-21 victory.
The Anteaters looked dazed as they were down 15-12 in game four. However, behind some solid serving from Steller, UCI would take a 17-15 lead. UCI took the game 30-25, which forced a deciding fifth game.
In game five, the Anteaters looked like a team possessed. With an ill .750 hit percentage UCI would go up 9-5 early. The only USC points came off service errors. Wynne made no mistake as he put down a kill to seal the 15-9 victory and the match.

BYU 3 UCI 1
In front of a crowd of over 1,000, the BYU Cougars came out firing. The Anteaters could not cool them off. UCI lost in four sets (30-20, 30-22, 28-30, 30-28)
UCI was led by Taylor Wilson and Jon Steller with 12 kills each. Aaron Harrell and Kevin Wynne added eight kills and Harrell tallied four blocks. Libero Brent Asuka led UCI with 11 digs.
BYU dominated game one. It built an early 10-4 lead behind a 6-0 run. UCI could not cut the deficit, but only saw it increase as BYU won the game 30-20 behind an impressive .517 kill percentage.
As if its hitting percentage was not already high enough, BYU hit .556 percent in game two. BYU’s Ivan Perez showed why he is one of the best players in the nation as he tallied six kills of his match