A special game for No. 23 Hawai'i — it was Senior Night — turned out to be a tale of two specialists in Hawai'i's Davone Bess and Oregon State's Gerard Lawson.

The Beaver, it turned out, came out on the better end of a 35-32 victory last night a Aloha Stadium.

Lawson, a sophomore, returned a first-quarter kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown, but his miss-tackle of Bess on a fourth-quarter punt return was nearly costly.

"I was hurt," Lawson said. "That could've decided the game. They got some real good field position right there. It made me feel bad."

Fortunately for Lawson, or unfortunately for Bess, the Warriors' offense failed to score, losing the ball on downs with 2:08 left.

After UH pulled to 35-30 with 7:06 left in the game, Dan Kelly's kickoff for a touchback gave OSU possession at its 20. The fired-up Warriors defense held the Beavers to a net two yards, forcing them to punt from their 22. Kyle Loomis drilled a high punt to Bess at the UH 25. It was high enough for Lawson to get at Bess just was the returner caught the punt. But Bess juked Lawson and raced 35 yards to the OSU 40 with 4:19 left. That got the crowd of 46,683 on their feet and cheering loud.

"It was just a matter of me keeping focus," Bess said of fielding the punt despite having Lawson pretty much in his face. "He was right there."

But Lawson didn't faze Bess.

"In practice, we practice drills like that," he said. "One of the guys just comes in our face and just stays in our face the whole time. It's just a matter of focusing and concentrating. After that, it's about going out and trying to make plays."

Bess said it was an instinctive act and doesn't recall which way he moved.

"I pretty much went off of his movement," Bess said. "He came one way, so I just went the opposite way. It's all about instinct. That's the game of football. It was nothing I planned. I just went."

"I just didn't breakdown," Lawson said. "I just tried to make the play."

Breaking down is when punt and kickoff coverage team players slow down to react to the ball once it hits the ground or is fielded by the returner.

Lawson might have remembered about a play he didn't make than the one that silenced the crowd earlier in the game after UH tied it at 7. On the ensuing kickoff, Lawson fielded the ball about two yards deep in the right corner (returner's point of view) and started breaking left, following his blockers. About 20 yards later, UH defenders were pretty much parallel with him, making it an easy past to the end zone.

"Honestly, when I did it, I didn't even feel like I was returning," Lawson said. "I didn't believe it at all. I only saw one person and he was barely with me so I knew I was going from there."

While it was a happy return for Lawson, the same would've applied to Bess had UH scored a touchdown and hanged on to win.

"It's a heart-breaker," Bess said. "We lost. We still have room for improvement. Right now, it's very emotional. This was the perfect game for us to come out victorious and we didn't. We're definitely going to learn from this."

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.