IRVINE, Calif. – No. 4 UC Irvine topped No. 10 UC San Diego, 3-0 (27-25, 25-21, 25-16) at the Bren Events Center Saturday.

The Anteaters returned to form, hitting .459 (46-7-85) led by outside hitter Hilir Henno's 15 kills and three aces. The senior hit .520 (15-2-25) and added two digs.

Henno's career ace total is now up to 236, moving into second all-time among NCAA players. He passed Loyola Chicago's Joseph Smalzer (234) and now only trails UCSB's Evan Patek's mark of 255 set from 2004-07.

UC Irvine goes to 16-6 on the year and 2-4 in the Big West, while the Tritons are 17-7 and 3-3 in league play.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
>Outside hitter Nolan Flexen totaled 13 kills, hitting .458 (13-2-24) with two blocks and two digs
>Opposite William D'Arcy added nine kills and five digs
>Middle blocker Beck Weber was a spark off the bench with a perfect 4-0-4 hitting, a career-high in kills. He also had a block assist in the win
>Middle blocker Maxim Grigoriev hit .500 with four kills on eight swings to go with an ace, a dig and two block assists
>Setter Joe Karlous dished 35 set assists and had two digs, two block assists and a kill
>Libero Shane Aitken pitched in five digs and had three set assists
>UCSD's Anthony Cherfan had 12 kills as the Triton's hit .373
>UCI held 5.0-3.0 block and 5-4 ace advantage

FIRST SET
>A 5-1 run helped UCSD out to a 7-4 lead
>UCI would keep it close until the Tritons had three kills and an ace to move out to a 13-8 advantage
>UCSD would get to the media timeout leading 15-10
>A kill by Hilir Henno and a UCSD error crept the Anteaters to 17-19
>A huge dig by Shane Aitken led to a Henno kill, 20-21
>A Nolan Flexen kill and ace tied the score at 22 all
>Teams would trade points until a Henno took control with two kills and an ace to give UCI the come-from-behind 27-25 win
>The Anteaters committed just one error in the set, 18-1-31 (.548)

SECOND SET
>A kill and ace put UCI up 2-1
>UCI used a Triton service error, kill by Flexen and another ace by Henno to move in front 10-8
>A kill by William D'Arcy and a UCSD attack that flew long gave the Anteaters a 15-11 lead at the media timeout. Out of the break, Henno added another kill to make it 16-11
>The Tritons responded with the next three to force a UCI timeout, 14-16
>A UCSD foot fault on the serve led to a block by D'Arcy and Beck Weber then Weber put back an overpass, 23-17
>Another Weber kill put the Anteaters at set point 24-18
>UCSD wasn't done, scoring on a UCI attack error, a block and an ace before Flexen recorded the kill for the set winner, 25-21

THIRD SET
>UCSD started with three attack errors, the second a block by Grigoriev , Flexen and D'Arcy
>UCI had three in a row on a kill by Flexen, an ace by Grigoriev and a UCSD attack that flew long to move UCI out to a 14-7 advantage
>After Joe Karlous would crush an overpass (17-9) then he assisted on a block with Grigoriev, 19-10
>Three UCSD kills followed to keep it interesting, 13-19
>UCI would out-score the Tritons, 6-3 to end the match, on kills by Grigoriev, Henno and Flexen and two Triton service errors, including the match-winner, 25-16
>UCI closed out the match hitting .609 (14-0-23) in the final set

NOTES
>Henno has recorded an ace in all but one match this season

UP NEXT
UCI travels to UC Santa Barbara Thursday (Apr. 10) for a match at The Thunderdome before returning to the Bren Events Center Saturday (Apr. 12) for a 6:00 p.m. match.