Sports Writer

The UCI Women’s Basketball team emerged victorious with a 79-77 win against the San José State University Spartans after starting their season off with a home game on Tuesday, Nov. 5 at the Bren Events Center.

The UCI Men’s Soccer team fell short one goal in their 2-3 loss to the No. 6 Cal State Northridge Matadors on Nov. 6. The UCI Anteaters struggled the entire game, but the encouragement of their home crowd sparked a 2-0 rally late in the game that ultimately wasn’t enough to leave them victorious. This game marked their second straight loss to CSUN and put an early end to their post-season championship run.

Over five months ago, North America’s number one League of Legends team, Team Liquid, stood proudly in front of fans after they defeated the reigning world champions, China’s Invictus Gaming, to advance to the finals of the 2019 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational, also known as MSI.

The UCI men’s basketball team extended their record against UCSD to 10-1 on Nov. 1 at the Bren Events Center. This was a historic night for the 2019-2020 Anteaters as they unveiled their 2019 NCAA Tournament and Big West Conference Championship banners and also set a record for student attendance (2,038). Coming off their best record in school history last season (31-6), the Anteaters carried this energy into their inaugural game to kick off the 2019-2020 season.

The UCI women’s volleyball team faced off against the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa last Saturday, Oct. 26 at the Bren Events Center where Irvine was swept in three straight sets (25-27, 17-25, 21-25). Their first match-up of the season took place on Oct. 4 in Honolulu, Hawai’i and the Anteaters returned home victorious with a 3-2 win over the Rainbow Wahine, their first in franchise history. UCI were unable to repeat this success this last Saturday and the Anteaters are now 4-16 overall and 1-7 in conference play.

The UC Irvine men’s soccer team secured a vital Big West Conference win against the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs this past Saturday at the Anteater Stadium. The win prevented Cal Poly from surpassing the Anteaters in the standings, forcing them to stay in fourth place. UCI moved to second place in the conference, putting them just one win away from being tied with UC Davis.

The UCI men’s water polo team squared off against Pepperdine Waves this past Friday, Oct.18, in hopes of getting back on the winning column and finding redemption from their loss against Stanford.

The UC Irvine women’s soccer team (3-10-1, 2-1-1) went to double overtime and tied, 0-0, against Cal State Fullerton Titans (10-2-2, 3-0-1) at the Anteater Stadium this past Friday, Oct. 18. This marks the first time this season that Fullerton has been held scoreless.

Approaching the one-year anniversary of the release of the Super Smash series’ Ultimate installment⁠—a crossover fighting game series whose playable and non-playable characters span across a plethora of Nintendo games⁠—many would find it quite necessary to spotlight one of the most impactful and integral figures of the gaming community not only at UC Irvine, but possibly in all of college gaming, Justin Muscat.