IRVINE, Calif. – No. 15 UC Irvine swept Harvard 3-0 (25-19, 25-22, 25-21) in the home opener at the Bren Events Center Wednesday.

Reigning Big West Freshman of the Week Hilir Henno was impressive once again, leading UCI with 14 kills and three aces. He shared the team lead in digs with six.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
>Outside hitter Francesco Sani totaled 10 kills, hitting .421 (10-2-19)   
>Dylan Zhai made his season debut, recording 27 set assists and three blocks. He matched Henno with six digs
>Middle blocker Doug Dahm (4), outside hitter Cole Gillis (3) and middle blocker Connor Campbell (2) rounded out the kill contribution
>Harvard suffered from 24 service errors
>Orange County native Ethan Smith led Harvard with nine kills

UCI HEAD COACH DAVID KNIFFIN SAID
"It's always interesting going in playing a team with no scouting report so we relied on the things we knew for us. After we went one time through all of their servers, we looked immediately comfortable in serve receive. I really like what we can do passing the ball with this lineup and I like the potential from the service line. They say if you can serve and pass you can go a long way in volleyball and I think we have real nice foundations in both of those."

FIRST SET
>Harvard took the early 4-1 lead until Francesco Sani crushed a ball, 4-2
>The Anteaters would catch the Crimson on three straight Harvard errors then an ace by Hilir Henno would give UCI its first lead, 6-5
>A 4-1 run by UCI which was started by a Cole Gillis kill off hands and was followed by a triple block by Dahm, Gillis and Zhai, helped UCI to an 18-14 lead
>The Anteaters would go up 20-17 only to watch Harvard close to 20-19 on back-to-back kills
>A pair of aces and a kill by Henno gave UCI the set, 25-19
>The Anteaters hit .412 (9-2-17) on the strength of Henno's .556 hitting percentage (6-1-9)

SECOND SET
>A 3-0 spurt by UCI which included a block by Dylan Zhai and a kill by Doug Dahm tied the set at 5-5
>The teams would remain close until UCI used kills by Connor Campbell, Sani and Henno and an ace by Sani, 21-18
>Harvard would rally with the next three points to knot the score at 21 all
>Following a Crimson service error, Sani pounded a kill to put UCI back on top, 23-21
>Another Harvard serving error and a Henno kill ended the set 25-22

THIRD SET
>Four consecutive Crimson attack errors, one on another triple block by Gillis, Campbell and Zhai, helped UCI out to a 7-4 lead
>A Sani kill sent UCI into the media timeout, 15-12
>Sani had a kill and a block assist with Campbell to move the lead to 20-16
>A Harvard serve would sail long to give UCI the set 25-21 and the match 3-0

NOTES
>UCI hit a season-high .324 (33-11-68) and out-blocked Harvard 6-4
>Henno increased his team-leading ace total to nine
>Sani recorded kills in double-digits for the third consecutive match
 
UP NEXT
>UCI will host Stanford Friday (Jan. 14) at 7:00 p.m. in the Bren Center. Please note UCI's Attendance policy