"There are more important things to worry about than (the injury)," Wilton said.

Indeed, these are grit-it-out times for the Warriors, who must overcome bothersome injuries and the exhaustion of a 22-match regular season if they wish to advance to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation semifinals in Malibu, Calif.

"It's pretty much 'put up or go home,' " UH setter Brian Beckwith said. "You're not going to hear a bunch of excuses after this (match). It's either we do or we don't, and if we don't, it's the end of our season."

The Warriors open against the league's most successful team since March 1. Long Beach State has won 11 of its past 13 matches. Its last loss was in three games against UH, a night after sweeping the Warriors in Long Beach.

The Warriors "played hard against us," 49ers setter Tyler Hildebrand said. "We're expecting a good match this time."

The teams appear to be evenly matched. Each has two powerful outside attackers — Pedro Azenha and Matt Bender for UH; Robert Tarr and Yassir Sliti for LBSU — accurate passers and active blockers.

The Warriors solved their inconsistent passing by reconfiguring their assignments. In most schemes, the opposite hitter is a team's most prolific attacker. Matt Carere, who beat out two others for the starting job, is an opposite hitter used as a primary passer.

"I'm comfortable with that role," Carere said.

The 49ers have boosted their defense by using libero Tyler Caldwell as a back-row specialist in place of Tarr.

"It's going to be a real serve-and-pass battle," UH's Beckwith said. "It's definitely going to come down to that."

Azenha, when he is playing with controlled aggression, is one of the sport's most intimidating jump servers. With serves estimated at 65 mph, Azenha seized the momentum in last weekend's matches, slamming 10 aces in two victories over Pacific.

"If he has another night serving like he did last week, and he goes off with his blocking and hitting, no one is going to stop us," Beckwith said.

No one, that is, except Azenha, who was ordered to the sidelines when he had an emotional outburst during a drill in Wednesday's practice.

"He lost it," Wilton said, adding Azenha, for the most part, has been under control this season.

"It's just the way I am," Azenha said. "I'm not different from who I am."

Meanwhile, Tarr has emerged as the 49ers' go-to hitter this season.

Last year, an injury cost him a spot in the rotation, and when he was healthy, it was decided a lineup change might hurt the 49ers' cohesion. But from this year's training camp, Tarr has been the featured attacker, receiving 29 percent of the sets — a remarkable share considering he rarely hits out of the back row.

Instead, 6-foot-6 Tarr uses a powerful swing and jump (he can touch 11 feet 9) to hit over the block.

"I just go up there and hit the ball," said Tarr, who averages 4.96 kills per game.

LBSU coach Alan Knipe said: "He carries a big load for us. He's had an extended run of playing at a high level for us."

'It was only 10 seats'

Managing to overcome the UH block, Long Beach State fans will be sitting behind their team's bench for Games 1 and 3 tonight in the Stan Sheriff Center. (Teams trade benches after every game.)

UH usually reserves up to 30 seats in the lower bowl for visiting fans. But angered by barbs in recent matches, Wilton requested banishing the visiting fans to the upper level.

"We order through the Hawai'i ticket office, then they assign us seats," LBSU ticket manager Jim Cordova said. "The person I worked with from the Hawai'i ticket office said, 'Sorry, the coach didn't want to give you any good seats.' "

Undaunted, Cordova logged on to the UH ticket office's Web site and ordered 10 tickets.

"We spent $160, but we're pretty close (to the court)," Cordova said. "It's funny, we only needed 10 tickets. That's why we were upset we couldn't get 10 (from UH). It was only 10 seats. It wasn't like we were bringing 100 people."