After leaving little room for critical quibble in their past three wins, the fourth-ranked Rainbow Wahine beat 25th-ranked Pepperdine last night in a volleyball sweep that looked better on paper than it did in the Stan Sheriff Center.

The Waves came out flat before a crowd of 4,559, but Hawai'i had to work harder as the night wore on in its 25-18, 25-20, 25-21 non-conference victory. The Rainbows (8-2) have won four straight for the second time this season going into tonight's rematch.

Pepperdine (7-4) has lost three of its past four. It is still completely capable of making Hawai'i look bad, as it did for extended periods last night.

The Waves' servers had only three aces — with 10 errors — but forced the 'Bows into their worst passing performance of the season, by far. Setter Dani Mafua was sprinting to set an offense despite passing "chaos," according to Kanani Danielson — one of UH's primary passers.

"Our passing wasn't there ... I was most of the passing that was bad," said Danielson, the Waves' favorite serving target. "Other than that I thought we did a nice job coming back together. There's some times when we have our little emotional moments, but we just need that quick second to get it all out and after that we're cool. It's all about getting better and letting it go."

Danielson finished with a team-high 11 kills and Aneli Cubi-Otineru had nine more at the other left-side hitting position. But the right side hit negative, with Stephanie Ferrell getting pulled for part of the second set after opening with one kill and five hitting errors. And the middle struggled offensively, a match after sinking then-10th-ranked Stanford.

"I thought our left-side hitters did a nice job just keeping the ball in play because they weren't getting isolated at all," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "And Dani did a really good job running things down in Game 1 and 2."

It was a sweep, and there were a bunch of bright spots, beginning again with freshman Brittany Hewitt. She was in on nine of UH's 12 blocks — the second-highest total this year.

"She's a tree," Danielson said. "Even in practice we're like, 'We can't get past her.' We're running our regular offense and it's like, 'Not here.' Bam."

Libero Liz Ka'aihue had a season-high 17 digs, despite subbing out the second set, when Jayme Lee got seven more.

That helped the 'Bows barely beat Pepperdine in the dig column. Half the Waves' 51 came in the final set, when they were relentless on defense as the teams worked through 12 ties, the last at 15. The Rainbows scored the next three points, with Danielson getting two kills. Pepperdine never got closer than two again.

It didn't start out that way. UH scored 17 of the night's first 22 points, going error-free offensively and stuffing four balls.

"I was just disappointed in my team not competing tonight. Kinda blown away actually," said Pepperdine coach Nina Matthies. "Because we've been competing really well and I'm a little disappointed in not really competing until Game 3. Then we just started playing volleyball and not worrying about anything."

The Waves woke after calling their second timeout, and collected 13 of the final 21 points in Set 1, including a 5-0 run on Stevi Robinson's serve.

The 'Bows' first hitting error came at 20-9. There would be three more before the set was over and no more blocks.

They weathered another breakdown in Set 2, when another five-point Pepperdine run was ignited by three straight UH hitting errors. The Waves got two of their own kills to go ahead 8-5 before the 'Bows battled back.

They tied it at 9 on Stephanie Brandt's ace and pulled ahead on Hewitt's block. The freshman would get two more as Hawai'i scored four in a row to pull ahead 21-14 and ease in.

Pepperdine was led by Lilla Frederick's 10 kills, but she was at the wrong end of half Hawai'i's stuffs. Frederick, Danielson and Cubi-Otineru are all under 6 feet tall. Waves' libero Stevi Robinson had 18 digs and two aces.

Tonight, Hawai'i and Pepperdine get a rare chance to redeem themselves immediately.

"I think we have the capability of putting a little more pressure on them," said Matthies, whose team is now 1-3 against ranked opponents. "When that happens, things can happen."

Hawai'i opens Western Athletic Conference play Thursday against Boise State.

NOTES

Hawai'i did not lead the nation in attendance this week for the first time since Sept. 3, 2007. The slump is over. Nebraska, which pulled ahead with a record crowd of 13,000-plus last week outside its usual home gym, has already turned in its attendance figures for next week's report. The 'Huskers are down 500, to an average of 6,041, which should put Hawai'i back in first. UH averaged 6,369 its first nine matches and sold 5,916 tickets last night. The Rainbow Wahine have led the nation every year since moving into the Stan Sheriff Center in 1994.

Until last night, seventh-ranked UCLA had only lost to Hawai'i this season. Then unranked Cal State Fullerton upset the Bruins, 16-14 in the fifth, in Fullerton. Ninth-ranked Minnesota also lost in five, to 12th-ranked Oregon.

Former Hawai'i All-American Heather Bown scored 19 points, but Team USA fell to top-ranked Brazil in the final of the Final Four Intercontinental Cup last weekend in Lima, Peru.