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Provo • BYU's regular-season champion men's volleyball team and coach Shawn Olmstead insisted all week that UC Irvine was much better than its No. 8 seeding and No. 14 national ranking indicated, and they were right.

The Anteaters gave the No. 1-ranked Cougars all they wanted on Saturday night in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament quarterfinal match in front of 3,535 at Smith Fieldhouse.

Still, BYU proved to be too much.

Ben Patch and Jake Langlois combined for 27 kills and the Cougars hit .429 collectively to sweep UC Irvine 3-0 and advance to next week's semifinals, which will also be played at home. The Cougars improved to 24-3 overall.

The scores were 25-21, 25-20 and 25-22, but that doesn't adequately describe how tense the sets were, as the visitors stayed close throughout, unlike USC last week. The Trojans barely made BYU break a sweat; the Anteaters had them sweating every point from the opening serve to the last point, which came when UCI's Tamir Hershko committed a hitting error.

"It is good to be tested," said Olmstead. "It is better to win, but it is good to get tested. We need that going forward. We are going to play some really, really good volleyball teams going forward."

The Cougars will meet UC Santa Barbara on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Long Beach State and UCLA also made the Final Four and will meet in the first semifinal, at 5 p.m. The conference final is slated for 7 p.m. next Saturday, with the winner getting an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

A prevailing notion before the match vs. UCI was that the Cougars needed at least one more win to wrap up an at-large berth — which is at Penn State in May — but Olmstead wasn't buying that line of thinking after the victory.

"We got one more," he said, referring to his oft-repeated, one-match-at-a-time mantra.

The coach and Patch said a big key against the Anteaters (10-20) was starting fast. They did that in the first set, as blocks by Price Jarman and Michael Hatch set the tone early. The Cougars broke from a 12-12 tie with three straight points and coasted from there.

The second set was similar, with BYU breaking away late from a 21-19 lead. A serving ace from Langlois clinched that set.

"Getting that lead gave them that energy, that vibe, that they have been playing so well with," said Olmstead. "Once they got to the point where we had a good lead, there was a little relief. I was like, 'OK, we are in a good spot. Let's get after it. Let's be aggressive, let's run our offense a little better, get a little more creative.' And we did that from there, for sure."

In the third, BYU assistant coach Luka Slabe picked up a red card, costing the Cougars a point, and UCI briefly led late, 19-18, before Sander took over down the stretch.

"We expected it would be a hard grind, and a really intense game, because UCI is no team to mess around with," Patch said. "They are just a physical, high-level volleyball team that we knew would be on its game. We knew that going into it."

The Cougars have now won seven straight matches since falling at home to Pepperdine on March 19. Patch said it felt good to get re-established in Smith Fieldhouse.

"Our fans are just amazing," he said. "This is our family. We have 6,000 people that we count on as family and friends and brothers and sisters. We wish that we could kiss them, because we love them so much. It is amazing to play here and be a part of something that is bigger than our team."

Twitter: @drewjay MPSF Quarterfinals

BYU 3, UC Irvine 0

* The No. 1-ranked Cougars win the conference tournament quarterfinal by scores of 25-21, 25-2 and 25-23 in front of 3,535 fans at Smith Fieldhouse

* BYU hits .429 and holds the No. 14 Anteaters to .282 hitting in the sweep

* Ben Patch and Jake Langlois combine for 27 kills and Brenden Sander adds nine