Stanford men’s volleyball had one of its best offensive performances of the season this weekend, but it was not quite enough to win against a pair of tough opponents in southern California. The Cardinal lost all six games in its two weekend matches, three of them by an agonizingly close margin of only two points.

Coming off an upset of top-ranked BYU, No. 3 UC-Irvine (12-3, 7-3 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) kept up its momentum, notching a 30-28, 30-22, 30-22 sweep over Stanford (1-13, 1-8) on Friday.

Stanford stayed with No. 6 UCLA (7-6, 5-5) point for point through most of Saturday’s match, but couldn’t quite finish, dropping the match in three games, 30-25, 30-28, 34-32.

The Cardinal have played close games throughout the season, but has too often come up short. Although Stanford has won one game by a score of 30-28 this season, it has lost by that same score seven times while falling twice in games that went past 30.

“The big picture is there for us,” head coach John Kosty said. “To start winning the 28-30 games, we need to concentrate on the little plays, just getting the one or two more points we need to get over this hump. It comes down to one missed serve here, a hitting error there or a missed dig opportunity. Making those little plays is key.”

The Cardinal raced out to a 6-2 lead in the first game against Irvine on Friday, powered by freshman setter Kawika Shoji’s pair of solo blocks. Stanford was within three points of victory when the Anteaters came alive, turning a three-point deficit into a 28-27 lead. A kill by Cardinal junior outside hitter Matt Ceran tied the game, but UCI got the points they needed for the 30-28 win.

“In the Irvine match, we were up, and then it came down to not being able to side out consistently,” Kosty said. “We gave up a run late in the first game — they scored 25 through 28 — and we couldn’t rebound that late in the game.”

Irvine began the second game with another run, jumping ahead 7-1. Stanford could not fight back to close the gap and lost the game, 30-22. The Anteaters held the Cardinal to negative hitting, forcing 11 offensive errors while only making three of their own.

Stanford bounced back to keep the third game close early on, trailing by just one. But UCI pulled ahead with five straight points, leaving the Cardinal behind for good. Again, Stanford was too far behind too late in the game to threaten the Anteaters, ultimately falling 30-22 as Irvine completed the sweep.

Ceran had nine kills to lead the Cardinal, while sophomore middle blocker Brandon Williams and freshman opposite Evan Romero each chipped in seven. No other Stanford hitter finished with more than two. Struggling on offense in the last two games, the Cardinal hit only .075 for the match, while the Anteaters rolled with a .347 percentage.

Williams led with four of Stanford’s six blocks — UCI finished with 11\p>— and Shoji had a match-high 10 digs to go with his 27 assists.

The Cardinal cut down on the errors against UCLA the following night, but it was still not enough to avoid the weekend sweep.

Both teams came out swinging in the first game, each hitting over .400 in the frame, but the Bruins claimed the 30-25 victory.

In the second game, the Cardinal’s offensive efficiency dropped off, but the score was closer, as UCLA barely eked out the 30-28 victory. The Bruins then clinched the sweep with a heartbreaking win in extra points in the third game.

“We had the lead [in the second game] and gave it up,” Kosty said. “We had our opportunities to win it, but it was not making the little plays that hurt us. In the third game, we did a good job fighting back to tie at 30-30, but we could not get that one swing that would put us up an advantage and serving for the game.”

Ceran again led the Stanford offense on Saturday, notching 18 kills — twice his output against the Anteaters. Romero added 10 kills while Williams had nine and hit .500 on the match. As a team, the Cardinal hit .323 in the match, including .458 in the first game.

Stanford outblocked UCLA by a margin of five to four, with Williams tallying three total, including a pair of solos. Sophomore libero Jarod Keller dug a match-high 10 balls for the Cardinal.

“We definitely improved, and I thought we played very well on Saturday,” Kosty said. “The big thing that we have been doing in practice has been trying to eliminate our hitting errors and we did that, especially in game one.”

Stanford will get a chance to reverse this weekend’s results when Irvine and UCLA come to Palo Alto this Friday and Saturday as the second half of the MPSF season gets underway.

“I think there is a confidence factor,” Kosty said. “[Our players] knew that they were in the match against Irvine and had the opportunity to take game one, which could have turned around the whole match. And at UCLA, we had our opportunities to go up two games to one and play for the win in Pauley Pavilion. I think we were mostly mad at ourselves that we didn’t take advantage.”