Box Score SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – No. 14 UC Irvine suffered a 3-0 loss (24-26, 19-25, 20-25) to No. 6 UC Santa Barbara at Rob Gym.

The Anteaters (8-13, 1-5) were out-hit .250-.347, but held a 7-6 blocks advantage. The Gauchos had seven aces to UCI's three.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
>Opposite Francesco Sani led UCI with 10 kills and an ace
>Outside hitter Akhil Tangutur totaled eight kills
>The middle blockers Doug Dahm and Aiden Wolf-Nielsen each hit .500, adding six and five kills respectively. Wolf Nielsen's five kills matched his season-high to go with a match-high four blocks
>Setter Brian Garcia led the team with four digs and 33 set assists. He also had an ace and tied Wolf-Nielsen with four blocks (1 solo, 3 assisted)
>Ryan Wilcox topped UCSB (16-6, 5-2) with 10 kills and  two aces

FIRST SET
>UCI went on a 4-1 run which included two kills by Francesco Sani to take a 7-5 lead
>UCSB would score three in a row and move in front 16-14
>UCI would flip the script, recording five straight, helped by a kill and two block assists by Aiden Wolf-Nielsen, 19-16
>A UCI service error, a Gaucho ace and an Anteater attack error helped UCSB to a 23-22 lead
>Two UCI blocking errors late hurt the Anteaters as UCSB would score the final two points to claim the set, 26-24

SECOND SET
>UCSB would score the first three points of the set, two on UCI errors
>A kill by Cole Gillis and an ace by Wolf-Nielsen got UCI back in it, 4-5
>A UCI service error and a Gaucho ace extended the lead to 15-19
>The Gauchos would out-score UCI 6-4 to win, 25-19

THIRD SET
>Kills by Sani and Wolf-Nielsen and an ace by Sani gave UCI a 4-1 advantage
>A 5-1 spurt by the Gauchos moved UCSB in front 8-7
>The Anteaters answered with the next two only to watch UCSB score three in a row to lead 12-10
>UCI used a kill from Akhil Tangutur and a block assist by Brian Garcia and Wolf-Nielsen plus a UCSB setting error to go up, 13-12
>The Anteaters would have three straight errors to give back the lead 13-15
>A kill and block assist by Doug Dahm knotted the set at 17-17 then an ace by Garcia forced a UCSB timeout, 18-17
>In the game of runs, UCSB answered with the next six, five on UCI errors, and would out-score UCI 8-2 to end the set, 25-20

NOTES
>UCSB has won the last six meetings
>Sani has recorded an ace in each of the last four matches
>Tangutur has totaled 18 kills over the last two matches

UP NEXT
UCI will travel to CSUN Friday (Apr. 8) at 7:00 p.m. before retuning home Saturday (Apr. 9) to host the Matadors at the Bren Events Center. Court 21 will debut on the 9^th with a pre-match ceremony dedicating the new Taraflex court prior to the 7:00 p.m. start.