After 83 matches as a focal point of Rainbow Wahine volleyball, senior Aneli Cubi-Otineru just watched her teammates play for the first time last night because of a lower leg injury.

What she saw was fourth-ranked Hawai'i thump overmatched Nevada, 25-12, 25-17, 25-16, with an effort that was solid if not spectacular. The 'Bows (14-2, 5-0 WAC) have won their last 10 going into tonight's Western Athletic Conference match against winless San Jose State.

A win would give UH coach Dave Shoji 999 victories, and the chance to become the second Division I women's coach with 1,000 when the 'Bows play Louisiana Tech Wednesday at Stan Sheriff Center.

A crowd of 4,093 saw Hawai'i sweep last night. The crowd, Cubi-Otineru and the 'Pack also saw lots of Amber Kaufman.

The UH senior buried a career-high 15 kills and hit a scorching .700. Even if the Wolf Pack (5-12, 1-3) was healthy, which it was most definitely not, Kaufman would have been a load. The 2009 NCAA high jump runner-up practically hovered over the Nevada block before burning it.

"We were joking that she jumps ... her head gets above the net and she stays in the air so long she gets to look around where she wants to hit," said Nevada freshman Kelly Chang, a Hawai'i Baptist graduate and one of four Hawai'i players playing a key role for the Wolf Pack. "She chooses, 'I want to hit it there, straight down.' "

"She's phenomenal," added Nevada coach Devin Scruggs. "She's so athletic she's fun to watch. It's amazing how high she jumps. I'd love to see her do the high jump."

Kaufman opened with a 4-for-6 first set that saw Nevada struggle to put together an offense from the start. The 'Pack was down 9-2 at the first timeout, with one kill and six attack errors. It staged a mini-rally, scoring three in a row with Chang serving and sliding for some of her eight digs, to get within 10-6.

Saint Francis graduate Kylie Harrington, the Nevada kill leader for the 14th time this season with nine, got her first two to keep it close for a moment. But Hawai'i scored 14 of the last 18 points, the final four with Stephanie Brandt serving.

Nevada hit negative .111 for the set and Hawai'i .348. Then Kaufman, seeking and destroying on the slide play outside, launched her first four swings in Set 2 into the floor. UH pulled to a 17-9 advantage and Kaufman finished the set with her ninth kill.

She would get six more in the final set. Nevada, which has had four players out with flu the last two weeks — including all-WAC middle Lindsay Baldwin — kept coming back for more and stayed even through 9-all before Hawai'i took over.

"Considering our health issues and the way we've been playing, we did OK," Scruggs said. "I'm certainly not pleased that we lost and I would have liked it to be a little closer, but we didn't make a lot of the dumb errors that we've been making. We just don't have the blocking to stop their hitters. That's the bottom line. They were hitting on an open net a lot."

The Rainbows came into this week's matches focused on keeping their offense quick no matter who showed up on the other side. They came close last night, but vowed to try harder against San Jose.

"It was good enough but I think we could go a little quicker, more crisp on the tempo on transition balls," setter Dani Mafua said. "Sometimes it (the offense) got a little higher than we would like."

Shoji was not as critical, although he also wants to see more "crispness" tonight.

"I thought Dani was in really great rhythm the first two games anyway," he said. "It got a little sloppy in the third but I thought she was flicking it out there really nicely. That's the rhythm we want."

WAC Player of the Week Kanani Danielson added 12 kills for Hawai'i and Stephanie Ferrell nine.