It was too much Hawaii for No. 8 Hawaii to handle.

No. 3 Stanford, starting four island prep products, swept the Warriors for the fourth consecutive meeting last night in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation volleyball opener for both. Sophomore hitter Brad Lawson ('Iolani '08) put down 13 kills with five service aces, and senior setter Kawika Shoji ('Iolani '06) had the Cardinal hitting at a .494 clip in a 30-15, 30-21, 30-18 victory at Maples Pavilion.

“;They run such a fast offense. We knew it. We worked on it. We couldn't get the job done,”; first-year Warriors coach Charlie Wade said. “;We'll be watching film until the sun comes up and try to get ready for them again.”;

The teams meet again today (5 p.m. Hawaii time).

Stanford (1-0, 1-0) won every phase of the match against Hawaii (2-2, 0-1) during the 84-minute match. The Cardinal outblocked the Warriors 10.5-3 with a 10-0 edge in aces, including three by Shoji to go with his 37 assists and match-high eight digs.

Freshman Jonas Umlauft led Hawaii with 11 kills, but had 10 errors, and junior hitter Joshua Walker, the MOP of last week's Outrigger Hotels Invitational, was stuffed on his first swing and never got out of negative hitting percentage; he finished with six kills, hitting negative-.044.

When the Warriors passed, they were able to run their offense. Senior middle Matt Rawson had seven kills with just one error and sophomore hitter Steven Hunt came off the bench in Set 2 to add eight kills.

“;Obviously, after the weekend Walker had, he was going to get a lot of sets,”; Wade said. He had a couple of trap sets early and never got into a good rhythm.

“;Hunt did a really nice job coming in and Dragon (Rawson) did a nice job; we just couldn't him the ball enough. We hit a bunch of balls out of bounds and they served pretty good—we probably made it look better than it was—which kept shrinking the game.”;

With the Warriors getting a bit predictable, Wade brought in sophomore setter Sam Morehouse in Set 2. As he had last week, Morehouse provided a spark until he was forced to leave midway through Set 3 after injuring his hand and hip when chasing a ball into the UH bench.

“;I don't know who we'll start tomorrow,”; Wade said.

Stanford coach John Kosty doesn't have any such problem. His starting unit hit .650 in Set 1 and finished with just five hitting errors overall. Lawson had the only hitting error of Set 3—also his only hitting error of the match—when being blocked by Rawson and Umlauft, a stuff that pulled the Warriors within 19-14.

Whatever hope Hawaii had was quickly extinguished, with the Cardinal rewarding the season-opening crowd of 1,108 with an 11-4 run to close it out.

Junior hitter Spencer McLachlin (Punahou '07) added seven kills, hitting .400, and sophomore libero Erik Shoji (Punahou '08) had six digs, two during a rally in Set 3 that McLachlin finished off for a 15-8 lead. Also getting into the match to serve was junior defensive specialist Jordan Inafuku (Kamehameha '07).

Hawaii threatened briefly in Set 2 when closing to 19-12. But Lawson continued to work his magic from the service line, with three consecutive aces that gave Stanford a 23-12 lead.

“;How we played is how we practiced,”; Kosty said. “;We've been all about maintaining a steady style of play, and that's what we saw tonight.”;

Kosty said he expects Hawaii to rebound tonight.

“;But we'll be up for it,”; Kosty said.