Last night, two of the best Matadors were ailing — outside hitter Cary Hanson (two kills, four attack errors) has a nerve injury in his right elbow, and opposite hitter Dan Rhodes (two kills, two errors) has a sprained right hand — and starting libero Sebastian Pedraza was in Florida meeting with Immigration and Naturalization Service officials in a bid for U.S. citizenship. Also AWOL was the Matadors' aggressive serving.

In Wednesday's match, the Matadors gave away 21 points on service errors, including eight (on 10 serves) by middle blocker Brian Waite. Last night, the Matadors served tentatively, and Waite abandoned his jump-and-rip serves for floaters. He still had four errors in eight serves.

"You're not going to win any games serving cautiously like that," Northridge coach Jeff Campbell said. "You have to go for it and get good crisp serves, and that wasn't happening."

Matador outside hitter Isaac Kneubuhl, a 2004 Kamehameha Schools graduate, said that "after a match like Wednesday's, you can't come back and be conservative. That's exactly what we did. We served bad, and this is the end result: we lose. That's how it goes."

UH outside hitter José José Delgado and libero Alfred Reft feasted on the Matadors' soft serves, lofting high passes to setter Brian Beckwith, who had a menu of options. Beckwith's favorites were quick sets to middle blocker Mauli'a LaBarre and pipe sets to the middle of the back row.

LaBarre, who had kills on his first nine swings and finished with 12 kills in 15 attempts, drew attention from the Matadors. "That opened it up for the other guys," LaBarre said.

For the back-row attackers, the pipe was sss-smokin'. The Warriors hammered 10 kills from the back row (compared to the Matadors' three), with opposite hitter Pedro Azenha putting down five.

"The pipe is becoming a very good weapon for us," UH coach Mike Wilton said.

Bender, who had three back-row kills, said, "the pipe is fun to hit, and Becky sets it really well. You see the block better from the pipe."

Front-row attackers are at risk of being smothered by the block. From the back row, Delgado said, "You can see the block and the whole court. You have more options."

Bender said: "If it's three (blockers) up and I'm stuck, like, dead center (of the back row), I'll hit high. If I'm up a little bit or there's a blocker down, I'll whale on it."

Waite, the Matadors' middle blocker, admitted to having difficulty tracking UH's back-row attackers.

"If you're not disciplined on the blocking side and on defense and you're moving around, it's going to be hard to defend," Waite said. "We were moving around a lot on the defensive side."

Azenha said the Matadors "had to worry about everything. The pipe is one more thing they had to worry about. It's one thing we added to our offense that we didn't use much last year."

The Matadors, meanwhile, could not find an offensive rhythm. Of their 10 points on plays initiated with their serves, eight came on UH attack or ball-handling errors. The Warriors did not call a timeout during the match.

Hanson started, but was pulled at the start of Game 2. He came back for Game 3. Rhodes did not play in Game 3.

"It hurts," Rhodes said of his right hand, which was wrapped in a brace after the match, "but I guess that's why they have tape jobs and medicine."

UH coach Mike Wilton said the Matadors "have a very nice volleyball team, but they're pretty beat up right now. They had a tough night. But, I must say, we played very good volleyball. We're getting a lot more disciplined with our block. We're playing some good defense, and we're making some nice scramble points. Brian (Beckwith) did a nice job, we also gave him something to work with. We passed effectively."

Beckwith said: "I can't thank my passers enough. They let me settle in our offense and get into that groove."