No. 5 UC Irvine Can't Get Offense Going In 3-1 Loss To No. 3 Long Beach State

Saturday, April 18

Irvine, CA

6:00 PM

UC Irvine

17-7,5-5Big West

Long Beach State

22-4,8-2Big West

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Long Beach St.	25	25	20	25	3
UC Irvine	19	13	25	23	1

Photo by: Jacob Thompson

No. 5 UC Irvine Can't Get Offense Going In 3-1 Loss To No. 3 Long Beach State

April 18, 2026 | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

By: Stacey Shackleford

IRVINE, Calif. – No. 5 UC Irvine hit a season-low in a 3-1 loss to No. 3 Long Beach State (19-25, 13-25, 25-20, 23-25) in the regular season finale at the Bren Events Center Saturday.

UC Irvine ends the regular season 17-7 overall and a 5-5 Big West record, tied for third with UC Santa Barbara. Due to a sets tiebreaker, the Anteaters are the third seed in The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2026 Outrigger Big West Men's Volleyball Championship. UCI will face No. 6 CSUN at 7:30 p.m. Thursday (Apr. 23) at the Bren Events Center.

UCI hit a season-low .188 (43-19-128) and saw LBSU record 16.5 blocks and 11 aces. The block total matches the most turnbacks and the aces are second most against the Anteaters this season.

Setter Micah Tumas had a career night, totaling 22 set assists and hitting .750 with six kills on eight swings. He had a career-best five digs and three block assists.

Middle blocker Trevor Clark led UCI in kills with nine, hitting .600 with a dig and two block assists.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
>Senior William D'Arcy totaled eight kills to go with six digs
>Freshman Andrej Jokanovic recorded seven kills, four digs and two block assists
>Middle blocker Micah Goss had seven kills, four digs and two block assists
>Libero Shane Aitken had a team-best 10 digs
>Outside hitter Andon Kiriakou tallied eight digs and three kills
>Senior Beck Weber added two kills and two digs and senior Aidan Schulten posted 10 set assists and a dig
>The Anteaters were without the services of setter Cameron Kosty
>UCI ended the night with 5.5 blocks and two aces
>LBSU hit .309 (56-18-123) and improve to 22-4 overall and 8-2 in the Big West
>The Beach was led by Connor Bloom's 15 kills and Ben Braun's 10 total blocks

FIRST SET
>Long Beach State used two kills, an ace and a block to move out to an 11-6 lead
>The Beach remained in control and led 20-13 before UCI rallied with Micah Goss at the service line and kills by Andrej Jokanovic and Beck Weber and a Beach attack error, 16-20
>LBSU would win the set 25-19, hitting .429 (14-2-28) with 5.5 blocks

SECOND SET
>Long Beach continued to roll offensively, hitting .714 (5-0-7) and jumping out to a 9-2 lead
>UCI could only string together kills by Goss and William D'Arcy, 8-16
>The Beach piled on eight more blocks and hit .609 without an attack error (14-0-23) to win the set 25-13

THIRD SET
>Out of the break, UCI came out firing, scoring on kills by Micah Tumas and Trevor Clark and a Goss ace, 5-1
>Tumas would crush a ball on two to up the advantage to 10-7
>D'Arcy would bang the ball off the block and force a LBSU timeout, 12-8
>Back-to-back Beach swings out of the court gave UCI a 16-11 cushion before LBSU used two kills, a UCI miscue and a block to close within 16-14
>Long Beach would inch to 18-17 before the Anteaters exploded for four in a row, including a block by Jokanovic and Goss and an ace by Andon Kiriakou, 23-17
>A kill by D'Arcy and a Beach attack error ended the set, 25-20

FOURTH SET
>Tumas would deposit a ball in the back corner then another over his shoulder in the front corner for a 4-3 lead
>With the score tied at 6-6, LBSU would go on a 6-1 run to take an 12-7 advantage
>A 6-0 spurt put the Beach up 20-12
>UCI would hang around, getting to 19-23 on another Tumas kill off the block then kills by Goss and Jokanovic and two LBSU attack errors made it interesting, 23-24
>The Beach finally ended the match with a kill, 25-23

NOTES
>Aitken recorded 10 digs for the second consecutive night, the ninth time this season he has logged digs in double-digits
>A crowd of 2,887 watched the match, marking the fifth time the Bren Center has had more than 2,000 fans this season