The fourth-ranked Stanford women's volleyball team put the heat on Hawaii Saturday night and evaporated the Wahine's perfect season with a 5-15, 15-11, 15-6, 15-9 victory. In the process, the Cardinal also vaporized Hawaii's No. 1-ranking with the Wahine expected to tumble as low as No. 4 when the ratings were announced later today.

Losing in front of the first sellout crowd of the season might have been a harsh reality check for Hawaii and the 10,225 at the Special Events Arena. But, unlike last season's first loss - the upset by Michigan State in the regional final - the Wahine (23-1) had today's practice to look forward to, with the chance to improve instead of no chance to fix what went wrong.

"Hopefully, this will help us," said senior blocker Angelica Ljungquist, who carried Hawaii with 21 kills. "It tells us that we can't afford to have letdowns, that when we start to fall apart we have to pull together.

"We need to know how to come back when facing a team like Stanford. It's not good that we lost because it was a loss. But it also doesn't bother me either, because the only thing that matters is who's No. 1 on Dec. 21. That's going to be us."

For the Wahine to make it to the final four next month in Cleveland, they're going to have to work on a few things. One is blocking a back-row attack, the other is getting more consistency from their outside hitters.

Joselyn Robins and Therese Crawford had zero hitting errors with six kills between them in Game 1 Saturday. In the last three games, Crawford had a negative hitting percentage (5 kills with 11 errors in 32 swings) with Robins having a little more success (6-4-28).

Hawaii gets a chance to regroup without a lot of pressure at 7 p.m. tomorrow against Nittaidai, one of the top university teams in Japan. Nittaidai is 3-2 on its U.S. tour, with losses to Brigham Young-Hawaii (3-0) and Long Beach State (3-1), and straight-set sweeps of UCLA, Southern Cal and Hawaii Pacific.

"I don't know if this exhibition comes at a good time for us but it does give us a chance play, have fun, without any pressure," Hawaii coach Dave Shoji said after watching Nittaidai defeat HPU last night. Their game is a different type of game than what we've been seeing and it will be fun to match up with them.

"It's also our way of reciprocating the hospitality they showed us last summer."

Hawaii trained for a week in Japan over the summer. The Wahine lost twice to Nittaidai in exhibition matches.

In Saturday's loss to Stanford, Shoji said his team was unprepared for how hard the Cardinal players hit, particularly freshman Kerri Walsh (18 kills) and junior Kristin Folkl, a U.S. national team member until last June. Punahou graduate Debbie Lambert also had a career night, adding 12 kills and five blocks after entering the match in Game 2.

"To be home and playing in front of 10,000 was an amazing thing," said Lambert, who blew out her knee warming up for the final four semifinal against Texas last December. "We knew we were underdogs and that was the first time that's happened in a while. We were in a different spot than we were used to being and I think it gave us an advantage. We had nothing to lose."

In many ways, Hawaii gained by losing the double burden of being No. 1 and undefeated. The Wahine have only to remember that none of their four championship teams was perfect: 1979 (36-5), 1982 (33-1), 1983 (34-2) and 1987 (37-2).

"They no longer have the pressure of being undefeated on their backs," Stanford coach Don Shaw said. "They can go into the NCAA tournament without people talking about them being the greatest team of all time, like they did in 1992 about UCLA (Stanford beat the Bruins for the title). Nor will they again be compared to the 1977 SC team (the only unbeaten team in women's collegiate volleyball history).

"They don't have to worry about those things anymore and I think it will help them."

The Cardinal spotted, then exploited, the Wahine weaknesses. Fortunately, Shoji said, all the breakdowns are fixable.

"It's a positive thing to know where a team can beat us," Shoji said Saturday. "The good thing is that we have time to go back into the gym and work on the things that were pretty obvious tonight. This time, the season's not over and we get to play again."

Hawaii's loss leaves Long Beach State (25-0) as the only unbeaten Division I team in the country.

The Wahine continue their quest for an unbeaten conference season with WAC matches at Colorado State Friday and Wyoming on Saturday.