It's all about timing.

The Hawai'i men's volleyball team has won all 36 meetings against UC San Diego.

But the streak is in peril against the Tritons, who recently upset USC and UCLA, and pushed Pepperdine to five sets. The Warriors and Tritons play tonight and tomorrow night in LaJolla, Calif.

As the Warriors learned in last week's split against underdog UC Santa Barbara, there are no sure things.

"In this league, every opponent is tough," UH setter Nejc Zemljak said. "We're going to try to do our best to play our game. If we do that, if we play to the top of our game, we're going to win. If not, we're not going to win."

This season, the Warriors have been betrayed by inconsistent passing and serving.

They believe they solved the serving problem in the rematch against Santa Barbara, when usual power servers Josh Walker and Sean Carney weaved in jump-float serves. The Warriors scored on 20 of their 36 serves.

"All we have to do is take care of our side of the net," libero Ric Cervantes said. "As long as we do that, we'll be fine. That's all we did in the second match against Santa Barbara, and that's how we won."

Left-side hitter Gus Tuaniga, who was limited last week because of a sprained left elbow, declared "everything is OK."

Tuaniga is the Warriors' best passer among the outside hitters. For tonight's match, Tuaniga will open as the backup to left-side hitters Walker and Carney.

Steven Grgas will make his third consecutive start at opposite, which hits mostly from the right side. Jarrod Lofy and Matt Rawson will be the middles.

In the Santa Barbara rematch, the Warriors received a boost from their reserves, who cheered and chanted encouragement.

Team captain Jim Clar said: "I told the guys before the match: 'We might not be playing, and we might not like that, but it's better to be on the bench of a winning team than on the bench of a losing team. If we give them enough energy off the bench, they'll have a better chance of winning.' "

The Warriors departed Honolulu yesterday afternoon. They did not practice in RIMAC Arena yesterday, but are scheduled for a short practice this morning.

Visit Tsai's blog at http://warriorbeat.honadvblogs.com.