Rainbow Wahine turn away Wildcats

Hawaii Five-oh-no turned Hawaii Five-no-way last night.

The No. 16-ranked Rainbow Wahine volleyball team avoided going five for the third time in four matches after fending off No. 25 Kansas State 34-32, 30-26, 25-30, 31-29 in the second match of the Hawaiian Airlines Classic.

Hawaiian Airlines Classic At the Stan Sheriff Center, all matches except today's live on pay-per-view and KKEA 1420-AM Yesterday » No. 5 UCLA 3, Louisville 0 » No. 16 Hawaii 3, No. 25 Kansas State 1 Today » No. 25 Kansas State vs. Louisville, 2 p.m. Tomorrow » No. 25 Kansas State vs. No. 5 UCLA, 2:30 p.m. » Louisville vs. No. 16 Hawaii, 5 p.m. monday » No. 5 UCLA vs. No. 16 Hawaii, 5 p.m.

A Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 4,544 (6,172 tickets) watched as Jamie Houston put down 25 kills and Aneli Cubi-Otineru added 13, including the match-ender, for Hawaii (2-2).

The Wahine took a mega-leap in their defense in the past five days, finishing with 67 digs last night. Freshman libero Elizabeth Ka'aihue had 17, her biggest save allowing a set to Juliana Sanders to tie it at 26.

"I think we finally found a rhythm," Ka'aihue said. "We started playing our game, weren't playing tentative. I never felt stressed. We have learned to trust each other and we had heart tonight."

UH was outhit .183-.145 and outblocked 17-15.5. But the Wildcats had eight more serving errors and "we needed those eight points," Wahine coach Dave Shoji said. "I give credit to the players. They didn't get down on themselves -- we were determined to show people they were a better team than they showed last week.

"And we made the plays down the stretch when we had to."

The Wildcats, getting 24 kills from Nataly Korobkova, lost for the first time in five matches this season. Rita Liliom added 20 kills for the Wildcats, who take on Louisville (3-1) in today's sole tournament match at 2 p.m.

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In last night's opener, Ali Daley put down 14 kills and Kaitlin Sather added a double-double with 12 kills and 10 digs to lead No. 5 UCLA over Louisville, 30-24, 30-27, 30-21.

Hawaii had to rally in the tight Game 4, coming back from a 24-21 deficit to tie it at 24. The lead changed hands twice, with K-State going ahead 28-27 on a kill by Liliom.

Houston put down two kills, giving the Wahine their first swing to end it. Liliom's kill again tied it ... briefly. Houston handled an overpass and Cubi-Otineru put down a bullet to gain the win.

"It feels really good to win, especially after last weekend," Cubi-Otineru said. "I wanted the ball at the end. All I was thinking was to hit high hands (on the K-State block). We had to come together as a team tonight, do what we do best."

Tara Hittle added 12 kills and 12 digs for Hawaii, and was in on six blocks.

UCLA 3, Louisville 0

The Bruins handled everything the Cardinals threw their way, slowing down the 6-foot-6 Jana Matiasovska while putting up balanced attack numbers.

UCLA (2-1) prevented the match from going longer than 94 minutes when mounting a successful rally in Game 2. After seeing Louisville use a 7-1 run to take a 25-23 lead, UCLA rallied with a 5-0 run of its own to take control at 28-25.

The Cardinals closed to within 28-27, but a service error and Sather's tip shot closed it out for the Bruins. UCLA spotted Louisville a 2-0 lead in Game 3 before taking the lead for good via a 7-0 spurt.

Louisville coach Leonid Yelin gave credit to UCLA's passing, which allowed setter Nellie Spicer run a multi-faceted offense. Passing was what his team was unable to do, which took away any chance to run a middle attack as Rui Liu and Lecia Brown combined for four kills on 20 attempts.

Matiasovska WAS the Cardinals' offense, with 15 kills in 40 swings.