Two volleyball teams that still looked shell-shocked from Saturday staged a war of Top-10 attrition last night in the 22nd annual Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Classic. Tenth-ranked California won, overcoming fourth-ranked Hawai'i, 25-21, 25-16, 20-25, 17-25, 15-11.

A Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 4,913 watched the Rainbow Wahine (4-2) suffer their second straight loss.

This one was not as one-sided as Saturday's defeat by second-ranked Texas, which won the Classic. But it might have been more demoralizing because Cal was completely demoralized while being swept by 19th-ranked Saint Louis the same night.

Something had to give, and it morphed into a marathon.

The Golden Bears (3-3) picked themselves up first, making the Hawai'i offense look awful for two sets while All-American Hana Cutura carved apart the defense. The 'Bows brought themselves back, found a rhythm, had tons of momentum after winning the fourth set and going up at the changeover in the final set, then saw Cal storm back.

"We had a horrible start," UH coach Dave Shoji said for the second straight night. "In warmups I felt like there was not much emotion going. This was our sixth tough match in 10 days and there was not much emotion to start. Obviously we were struggling early, but as the match wore on we found something in the gas tank."

Cutura had 10 kills in an opening set where the game plan was, as Cal coach Rich Feller said, "go with Hana, go with Hana, go with Hana." But her five fifth-set kills hurt Hawai'i more. The 6-foot-4 Croatian finished with a career-high 30 kills and 72 attempts; it was the Bears' first 30-kill performance in six years.

Her 13th error put UH up 8-6 in the fifth. She would have no more. Cal went ahead 11-8, then rode Cutura's last three kills and UH's 11th service error.

"We need to close out faster," said senior Aneli Cubi-Otineru, the only 'Bow on the all-tournament team. "Even more important, we need to have a better start. It all starts from the day before. After Texas we should have been thinking of Cal."

Cal was thinking of Hawai'i, staging a full practice yesterday so it could "get better and get tougher." It worked.

"It was gratifying for us to see our team come back and play a lot better volleyball than we did the first two matches," said Feller, who lost a starter to injury in the opening set and played three freshmen. "And to really see what we can do.

"We were up 1-0 to Texas and didn't sustain that at all. So going up 2-0, it was in the back of my mind that the same thing could happen. We faltered a little bit and Hawai'i played really at a high level for those two games they took off us. To be able to come back in the fifth game and play even with them and get a little spurt at the end was very, very gratifying."

That was not the word the Rainbow Wahine were using. Their rally was inspiring, but to see an offense that had been so efficient its first four matches break down was alarming, even if it came against a couple Top-10 teams with some of the country's premier players.

Both Texas and Cal poked a few holes in the Rainbows' passing, which had been so solid last week. But the setting and hitting were the most obvious problems this weekend, taking a dramatic drop from opening weekend. Shoji said his team was not healthy, but also said that everyone was healthy enough to play and there were "no excuses."

"(Setter) Dani (Mafua) had a bad weekend. She just wasn't herself, so I took her out in Games 1 and 2," Shoji said. "And she really came back nicely. She had a chance to sit a while and played extremely well in Games 3, 4 and 5. I was pleased she could come back and contribute like she needed to."

Sophomore Stephanie Ferrell pulled herself out of another funk to lead the 'Bows with 18 kills, hitting nearly .500 the final three sets. Amber Kaufman also came back, but Hawai'i's go-to hitters — Kanani Danielson and Cubi-Otineru — hit .150 and .120, respectively. Danielson was hitting negative (3 kills, 4 errors) after two sets.

"We can play with the top teams, but our size is such that we have to be on," Shoji said. "We just have to work so hard, we have to be on to beat elite teams. If we're a little bit off we can't rely on setting the ball high and trying to beat big blocks."

That would be Cutura's game, and she was clearly the difference last night.

"The positives are we played with Texas for two of the four games, we beat Cal two games," Shoji said. "We beat UCLA. We know we have some of the ingredients. We knew going in that we were small. ... If our small people are all on, we're OK."

If they aren't, Hawai'i now knows what happens.Second-ranked Texas (5-0) clinched the championship earlier with a 25-17, 25-18, 25-10 victory over Saint Louis (3-3), whose three losses are all to top-4 teams.

The most drama in the match came early, when Longhorn setter Ashley Engle — an All-America hitter last season — had her first hitting error of the Classic in Set 1. She was 25-for-42 against Cal and Hawai'i.

The tournament's Most Outstanding Player finished with seven kills and the lone error in 13 swings and hit .564 for the weekend. Last week, she was 12-for-33 with seven errors.NOTES

The all-tournament team: Most Outstanding Player: Ashley Engle (Texas). Destinee Hooker (Texas), Juliann Faucette (Texas), Hana Cutura (Cal), Bridget Fonke (SLU), Mindi Wiley (Cal), Aneli Cubi-Otineru (Hawai'i).

The 'Bows play Weber State, Texas-San Antonio and 11th-ranked Stanford in this week's Honolulu Advertiser Challenge (Thursday to Saturday), then take on 21st-ranked Pepperdine Sept. 18 and 19 before starting the Western Athletic Conference season.