LONG BEACH, Calif. >> Hawaii and UC Irvine opened the Big West season against each other on Feb. 23 at the Stan Sheriff Center. Two months later, the teams meet again in what will be a season-ender for one at a neutral site.

The third-seeded Anteaters advanced to today’s meeting with the second-seeded Rainbow Warriors via a 25-18, 25-18, 25-16 sweep of UC San Diego in Thursday’s first round of the inaugural Big West tournament at Long Beach State.

With the luxury of having a bye, the Hawaii players sat back and watched most of the UCI-UCSD match at the Walter Pyramid. They had watched film on the Anteaters and Tritons earlier in the day, but, as Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said, it was good to get “a live scout.”

What the Warriors saw was the Anteaters run a diverse and efficient attack, led by junior opposite Karl Apfelbach’s 17 kills with just one error.

UCI’s four other attackers had seven or more kills as the ’Eaters hit .551 over the 99 minutes.

Apfelbach had 14 kills in the four-set loss in Honolulu. He went off for 24 two nights later in a four-set victory that snapped Hawaii’s conference home winning streak at 14.

“Winning in Hawaii is an awesome thing to achieve,” Apfelbach said during the postmatch press conference.

“When we play our best, we competed for every point. That’s what we need to do, play our game point by point.”

It will come down, as always, to the basics: serve and pass. When defeating UCI, Hawaii had eight aces; when losing two nights later, the Warriors had zero.

“Apfelbach is a big focus for us,” Hawaii junior setter Joe Worsley said. “You’ve always got to slow down a good team’s opposite. We’re ready to get going.”

“UCI has some good players, especially Apfelbach, who gave us some problems the last time,” UH junior hitter Brett Rosenmeier added. “It’s nothing we can’t handle. We just have to be ready.”

UC San Diego coach Kevin Ring sees the match as a toss-up.

“It’s a coin flip to some degree,” Ring said. “Both setters do a nice job setting on the run, pushing the pace at the pins (outside hitting attack). It’s going to come down to serve and pass.

“Hawaii beating Long Beach State (last Saturday in five) … they played really well. You want to be playing your best volleyball in this Phase 3 of the season.”

In Thursday’s second match, fourth-seeded Cal State Northridge defeated fifth seed UC Santa Barbara 25-18, 30-28, 12-25, 28-26. The Matadors (16-10), the only ones to beat the Warriors twice this season, advance to face top-seeded Long Beach State (24-1) in tonight’s second match.

In the eyes of Big West commissioner Dennis Farrell, the conference was the big winner this week.

“It’s awesome, we’ve been dreaming about bringing the sport into the Big West family for years,” Farrell said. “We want to be the leader in elevating men’s volleyball and we’re hoping that this will lead to other conferences helping grow the sport across the country.

“It would be really nice for us to win a national championship in our first year.”