Irvine, Calif. – Sixth-ranked UC Irvine swept Pacific 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 25-18) on senior night at the Bren Center Saturday.
The Anteaters improve to 18-10 overall and 15-9 in the MPSF. UCI ends the regular season tied with UCLA and Long Beach State for fifth place, but due to a tiebreaker will be the sixth seed for the MPSF Tournament. UCI will travel to third seeded Stanford next Saturday (Apr. 19) for a quarterfinal match.
Seniors shined on their final regular season home match led by outside hitter Jeremy Dejno with 12 kills and two aces. Senior outside hitter Connor Hughes recorded eight kills and five digs, while senior middle blocker Scott Kevorken added six kills and two block assists and senior middle blocker Collin Mehring was errorless, hitting .833 on five kills in six attempts. Junior Zack La Cavera recorded nine kills, while freshman Tamir Hershko had five kills. Junior Roberto Frazzoni totaled 36 set assists and five digs, while junior libero Michael Brinkley collected a match-best 15 digs.
Pacific's Tommy Carmody hit .588 with 11 kills and had a match-high five total blocks. Thomas Hodges added seven kills and four block assists. The Tigers end their final season with a 3-24 overall and 2-22 MPSF record.
The teams remained close in the first set until a kill by Scott Kevorken and Pacific attack error put UCI in front 17-15. A kill by Jeremy Dejno, a Tiger error and a solo block by Collin Mehring pushed the margin to 21-17. The Anteaters would win the set 25-21 behind six Dejno kills.
UCI opened a 5-1 advantage with the help of three Pacific errors, the last a block by Zack La Cavera. Phillip Friedman had an ace to make the score 23-16 before UCI won the set 25-18.
The final set was all UCI as they opened an 8-1 lead and went on to a 25-18 victory.
MPSF QUARTERFINALS (Apr. 19)
#8 USC at #1 BYU
#7 Long Beach State at #2 Pepperdine
#6 UC Irvine at #3 Stanford
#5 UCLA at #4 UC Santa Barbara
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