University of Hawai'i men's volleyball coach Mike Wilton doesn't have to worry about a contract extension.

That was finalized yesterday.

Wilton also isn't worried about his team after it lost to British Columbia, 30-25, 22-30, 30-16, 30-24, last night before a crowd of 1,629 at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The loss — as well as the one Wednesday — doesn't count and the Warriors are just getting re-acquainted with one another.

Wilton's extension is retroactive to July 1, 2006, and runs through June 30, 2009.

"Very happy, very pleased. Thank you," he said of the deal.

According to a UH press release, the terms and details of the contract will be released after it is signed by all parties.

"I am happy that we have come to closure on a new contract for Mike Wilton," UH athletic director Herman Frazier said in the release. "I know that the president, chancellor and everyone associated with the University share my thoughts."

When asked why his previous deal was allowed to lapse, Wilton said: "I can't pretend to know. I can't imagine there's very much fun about being an athletics director. Whereas coaching, to me, is a lot of fun. I don't have any bad feelings about it. It's good that it got done."

Wilton has a 283-119 record in 14 seasons, including three final-four appearances.

Last night, Hawai'i was short-handed with senior outside hitter Lauri Hakala and junior outside hitter Jake Schkud out with the flu. Even Wilton was under the weather.

Wilton wasn't disappointed with his team's performance.

"No, no," he said. "We were missing a pretty good player tonight. Lauri is sick, everyone is getting sick."

After nearly a one-month break, the Warriors practiced for the first time Monday, and had two practices before Wednesday's match.

"Of course it hurts to lose, but we're in this to get practice," senior middle blocker Dio Dante said. "We needed to get back in the rhythm of things after the break and it was really good practice if anything. We take it with a grain of salt. We're getting better and better, and game situations are the best practice a team can get."

The Warriors used all 13 available players. Hawai'i has four seniors and two juniors on its roster.

"Everyone wants to get experience because you never know when something like this will happen when two guys who play key roles on our team go down with the flu and stuff," Hawai'i sophomore setter Sean Carney said.

Wilton said he saw some good things early.

"Through the first two games we were winning the serve/serve-receive battle and we clearly lost it in the third and fourth games," he said.

In the second game, the Warriors hit .294 and held the Thunderbirds to .043. In the other three games, British Columbia hit a combined .413.

"We had a bit of a lull in that second set, but we accomplished what we wanted to do and that was to obviously shake off some rust because we haven't played since the 20th of November or whatever," British Columbia coach Richard Schick said.

Freshman outside hitter Steven Grgas had 14 kills and sophomore outside hitter Mark Ribeiro added 11 for the Warriors, who hit .174 for the match.

The Thunderbirds hit .330 with Matt LeBourdais and Andrew Bonner each having 13 kills, and Christoph Eichbaum adding 12.

"They are a solid team all the way around, every single player, and we take our hats off to them," Carney said.

The Thunderbirds out-dug the Warriors, 43-28, including a kick save by LeBourdais in the fourth game that kept alive a rally and led to a British Columbia point, which made it 22-18.

The matches will start counting Friday when the Warriors visit UC Irvine.

Carney expects Hawai'i to be ready by then.

"We have a whole week of practice and by the time we play Irvine we'll be together," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if we got all the kinks out in a couple of days."

Reach Kyle Sakamoto at ksakamoto@honoluluadvertiser.com.