A quick sweep on the road on Friday shortened Hawaii’s path in next week’s Big West men’s volleyball tournament.

Hawaii opposite Dimitrios Mouchlias put away 13 kills and served up an ace on match point and the fourth-ranked Rainbow Warriors needed just 91 minutes to earn a 25-21, 25-18, 25-22 series-opening win over No. 14 UC Irvine at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif.

The Warriors (21-5, 6-3 Big West) hit .390 in the match and posted nine blocks and secured the second seed in the conference tournament, which opens on Thursday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. The top two finish comes with a bye in the quarterfinals.

Given the grind of the regular season, “We all know for everyone on both sides of the net there is a finite number of jumps or swings or whatever part of your body is barking at you,” UH coach Charlie Wade said in a post-match Zoom session. “It’s nice to be able to have it be a two-match tournament instead of a three-match tournament.”

After UH closed out the win over UC Irvine, Long Beach State fought off a match point and rallied for a five-set win over Cal State Northridge to clinch the Big West regular-season title and the top seed in the tournament. As the top two seeds, the Beach (18-4, 7-2) and Warriors advance directly to the semifinals next Friday.

UC Irvine (10-14, 3-6) will be the fifth seed and Cal State Northridge (6-14, 1-8) is locked in as the sixth seed. The third and fourth seeds will be determined by today’s match between UC Santa Barbara (16-8, 5-4) and UC San Diego (13-9, 5-4).

UH and UC Irvine will close the regular season with today’s rematch, with the Warriors looking to extend their 10-match winning streak in the series with the Anteaters.

UH setter Jakob Thelle kept the UC Irvine block guessing in spreading the attempts throughout the lineup on Friday. Mouchlias hit .440 with two errors in 25 attacks and middle blocker Guilherme Voss had nine kills in 12 attempts.

Outside hitter Spyros Chakas added eight kills and two aces. Filip Humler started at the other outside hitter spot in place of Chaz Galloway and finished with six kills.

“I’m never surprised when Jake plays well and runs our offense very efficiently and with nice production spread out,” Wade said. “I thought we could have passed a little bit better, but he does a nice job with what we give him, for sure.”

Humler made his fifth start of the season after giving UH a spark off the bench in two home wins over UC Santa Barbara last week. Wade said Galloway “got a little dinged up (Thursday) in practice,” and the coaches decided to give Humler the start.

“Even though he’s played well coming off the bench, he’s usually better when he’s had the full warm-up, so I wanted him to be able to take advantage of that,” Wade said. “He hadn’t started for a while, he’s played well and wanted to give him a shot and thought he played pretty good.”

UC Irvine opposite Francesco Sani led the Anteaters with a match-high 16 kills and four aces, but UCI hit .200 as a team with 20 attack errors.

“He could be one of the best players in the world if he sticks with it,” Wade said of the sophomore. “He scares me a lot as an attacker, as a blocker, as a server. He’s a really good player.”

After a block gave UC Irvine the first point of the match, UH did not trail again for the remainder of the night.

Hawaii posted four blocks early in the match, including two solo by Mouchlias, to open a 15-10 lead in the opening set. UC Irvine closed to within two on five occasions, the last at 23-21. But Mouchlias’ kill out of the back row gave UH set point and Thelle hammered his lone kill of the set to give UH the lead in the match.

“Jakob is getting (Mouchlias) really open looks on D-balls that you just don’t see that much,” Wade said of the back-row attacks from the right side. “It’s hard to defend when you haven’t seen it.”

Chakas had five kills and served up both of his aces in the second set. The second capped a 5-1 UH run that gave the Warriors a 24-17 lead and a UCI service error ended the set.

The Warriors opened up a 15-10 lead in the third set before UCI rallied and closed to 21-20 on back-to-back aces by Sani. UH was able to trade sideouts to maintain the lead, earning match point on a Chakas kill from the back row. Mouchlias then dropped in an off-speed serve for the ace to close the match.