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The regular season Big West men’s volleyball champions will begin their conference tournament run tonight at 7:30 p.m. PT. Top-seeded Long Beach State–currently No. 3 in the national rankings–will face UC Irvine in the 2022 Big West Volleyball Championship semifinals, hosted by the University of Hawai’i.
The Beach received a first-round bye and watched on as No. 5 seed UC Irvine swept No. 4 seed UC San Diego in Thursday night’s first quarterfinal match. The Anteaters got 19 kills from Francesco Sani and hit .405 as a team in their 25-23, 25-20, 30-28 win over the Tritons.
During the regular season, Long Beach State split its two meetings with UCI, losing in five sets in Irvine on March 10 before sweeping the Anteaters the next night at Walter Pyramid by a score of 25-22, 25-18, 25-20.
If the Beach win the rubber match with the Anteaters, they’ll advance to Saturday’s tournament final against the winner of No. 2 seed Hawai’i and No. 3 seed UC Santa Barbara. Saturday’s championship match is scheduled for 10:30 p.m. PT. Every match of the Big West Tournament is being streamed live on ESPN+.
