UCLA, ranked No. 2 nationally and a Hawai'i tormentor in perpetuity, not only defeated the nation's top-ranked team — by scores of 30-15, 21-30, 30-27, 30-23 — but dropped the Warriors to second place in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

The Warriors, who lost for the first time since Jan. 16, are 11-3 overall and 8-2 in the MPSF. The Bruins are 13-3 and 8-3. Brigham Young is the new MPSF leader with a 9-1 record.

A Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 7,305, the largest in NCAA volleyball this year, saw the Bruins end a five-match losing streak against the Warriors, avenge Thursday night's loss and improve to 42-15 in this series.

"It's always fun playing in Hawai'i, that's for sure," UCLA quick hitter Chris Pe–a said. "A win's a win. It's another tally for us. It's just going to put us in a good spot for the playoffs. That's all we're looking for. I mean, it's just another win on our list, you know what I mean?"

Pe–a drew the ire of the UH fans with his demonstrative play. He was jeered every time he prepared to serve. "That's his role on the team," Bruin libero Adam Shrader said. "He's the fire-guys-up type."

Pe–a relished the role, saying, "I just play as hard as I can. If they don't like it, it's not my problem. I'm just being myself. I'm not doing anything exceptional. I'm just being myself, and it seems to be working."

It was the Bruins' workmanlike approach, both teams admitted, that proved to be the difference. After struggling with their serves and hitting in Thursday's match, "we wanted to give ourselves an opportunity to be as good as we're capable of being," Pe–a said.

The Bruins served nine aces but, more importantly, they induced the UH passers to force setter Brian Beckwith to scramble. The Bruins scored 11 points on serves by setter Dennis Gonzalez, their only player who does not use a jump serve. Gonzalez served one point on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, the UH servers had their pick of poisons. Do they serve to fifth-year senior Shrader or outside hitter Kris Kraushaar, who had the better match Thursday? The Warriors decided to aim jump floaters or standing serves in the direction of Shrader.

But UH coach Mike Wilton said: "Too many jump serves went to Shrader. There were too many other guys to get after. It was anybody but him on the jump serves. If we served to Shrader, those were serving errors."

Shrader was able to start the Bruins' offense, passing 34 serves without an error and amassing 13 digs. That allowed Gonzalez to set Steve Klosterman in the back row, Kraushaar on the left side and Pe–a in the middle.

"I don't know if they were trying to serve it to me or not, but I'm usually in the middle of the court," Shrader said. "Things happened to come to me, I guess."

UH's Beckwith said: "It was definitely a serving-and-passing game, and they stepped up."

Pe–a said the Bruins spent time Friday and yesterday morning studying videotape of Thursday's match. "We knew what we had to take care of," he said. "I mean, shoots, we gave them a game and a half the last time. They had some good serving the last time. We just realized what we had to do when the serves were coming. They've got some good servers, but we've got some good servers, too."

But the Warriors, despite a disastrous first game in which they had more attack errors (10) than kills (9), dominated Game 2 behind Delano Thomas' powerful swings and led 22-18 in Game 3.

But then the Bruins served tough and their block smothered the Warriors' perimeter attack. The Bruins scored 12 of the game's final 17 points.

"We couldn't really answer the bell after that," Wilton said. "That had a big, bad effect on us."

Aside from Thomas, the Warriors had little success from their outside hitters. Pedro Azenha buried 14 kills, but made eight errors and hit .182. He was replaced twice during the match. JosŽ JosŽ Delgado hit .167.

Few of UH's tactics worked. The Warriors played all but one of the players on their active roster. In the end, their line of errors read: 24 on attacks, 18 on serves, nine on service receptions.

"A great old basketball coach said, 'It's disgraceful to beat yourself,'" Wilton said. "That, of course, is John Wooden."

Wooden, of course, was a UCLA coach.