Bruins blast Warriors

It wasn't the greatest volleyball on either side of the net last night. But all it took was being good enough, and good enough at the right times.

No. 4 UCLA was just that, playing steady when needed, in sweeping No. 15 Hawaii at the Stan Sheriff Center. A turnstile crowd of 1,809 (2,925 tickets) saw D.J. Stromatch put down 12 kills and Jamie Diefenbach 11 in a 30-28, 30-24, 30-26 victory that was 62 minutes shorter than Thursday's marathon.

Jim Clar and Jake Schkud each had 10 kills for the Warriors (4-7, 3-5 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) in the 98-minute loss.

"Both nights, it could have gone either way," Warriors setter Sean Carney said. "(Thursday) night it went our way (winning in five), (last night) it went theirs.

"The main difference tonight was they outplayed us. They played better than we did. But we're just taking it one game at a time and we'll go back in the gym Monday and start working on our next match."

The Warriors will take thoughts of the split with the Bruins (10-5, 7-4) on a nine-day road trip when they'll be at Pacific and Stanford for two matches each between next Friday and Feb. 28.

"The upside is that we did beat UCLA this week, the bad side is that we lost to them, too," said Clar. "I think we lacked some intensity and some composure.

"Winning Game 1 would have made a huge difference, would have given us some confidence. I think we lost some focus."

Some of that focus was from the serving line, with Hawaii having seven of its 16 momentum-killing errors in Game 1. UCLA, with 33 on Thursday, had six of its 19 in Game 1 last night, including a serving delay -- worth a point -- that gave Hawaii a 27-26 lead. A block of Garrett Muagututia by Matt Rawson and Josh Walker made it 28-26, but the Warriors couldn't hold on.

The Bruins scored four straight, using a kill by Darwin Edwards to jump-start their closing run. Behind the serving of Ryan Ratelle, UCLA got two blocks and a kill by Sean O'Malley to win it.

The Warriors stayed close the rest of the match but never could get over the hump. In Game 3, a kill by Schkud tied it at 16 only to have the Bruins pull away to 21-16 via a 5-0 run.

Hawaii used two of its 14 blocks in closing to 28-25, but O'Malley's 10th kill gave the Bruins match point. UCLA had two swings at it, with Diefenbach finishing it off on the second attempt.

"We knew what we needed to do and we got it done," UCLA setter Matt Wade said. "We made fewer errors tonight and that was the difference."

Steven Grgas added eight kills and was in on seven blocks for Hawaii. Freshman libero Tom Hastings, in his second match as the replacement for All-American Tony Ker, and Ratelle had a team-high 10 digs for the Bruins.