As 11th-ranked Hawai'i arrived home from its toughest volleyball road trip, it could groggily ponder this thought:

That shockwave 25th-ranked New Mexico State sent through the Western Athletic Conference when it beat the Rainbow Wahine on Friday, ending their NCAA-record 132-match winning streak against conference opponents, should be far down on their list of worries.

Jessica Keefe's health has to be at the top with the team's shaky passing next.

There's also a matter of whether the match against Notre Dame tonight will be played. UH says the match will go on "as long as the power's back," according to Pakalani Bello of the Sports Media Relations office. Both teams practiced yesterday at UH.

Keefe didn't practice and is listed as "doubtful" for the match. She hurt her left knee on aloha point Wednesday at Louisiana Tech. Since UH is no longer allowed to give out information about injuries, no one can say how serious it is. But no one is denying Keefe might be out the rest of the season, joining starters Tara Hittle and Nickie Thomas on the bench and erasing Hawai'i's 2004 recruiting class.

UH coach Dave Shoji says freshman Amber Kaufman will start against Notre Dame in tonight's non-conference match.

The end of that gaudy conference run is not even the most pertinent streak Hawai'i has to worry about. NMSU broke the record in Las Cruces on Friday by exploiting a sloppy streak that should be more of a concern. UH has given away points faster than it can score them in parts of every match this season.

It has cost them in every close loss, never more so than Friday. They were outscored 5-zip to end the second game, which they led 28-25. Of those five, four came on ballhandling errors.

The 'Bows were up 20-13 in Game 4. The Aggies outscored them 17-4 with the help of five hitting errors, a net violation, three aces and four bad passes.

It was no wonder a frustrated Shoji spoke of his team "giving away" the NMSU match. He has called the ballhandling problems and streaks of wildness "gross errors" and "loose points" from opening day.

"It was one thing and then another and it kept compounding itself," he said Friday night. "We'd make bad plays, couldn't shake them off and make another bad play. It was too many in a row where we gave up points. If we could have kept "side-outing" we would have won, but we couldn't do it."

The Rainbow Wahine are in all kinds of trouble if they can't slow that skid. Shoji sounds confident they can ... sort of.

"If we play up to our capabilities we'll win next time against New Mexico State (Nov. 12)," he said. "We should have won this time. If we're home and rested and have our home crowd, I think the match will go our way. But we've got a long way to go before then."

It has to begin today (7 p.m.) and tomorrow (6 p.m.) against the Fighting Irish, who regularly take a non-conference trip during their current school break.

The Fighting Irish are young — five freshmen play a lot — and have dropped out of the rankings since the beginning of the season. But they have been to the past 14 NCAA Tournaments and are potentially better than New Mexico State.

"They may have better athletes (Nos.) 1 to 6," Shoji said. "I don't know their personnel, but Notre Dame is able to recruit very talented athletes. They might be too young to make an impact now, but we will see some great athletes."

Shoji knows he will see tired athletes on his side. By tomorrow night, the Rainbow Wahine will have played seven matches in 12 days, and traveled 9,766 miles.

Co-captain Cayley Thurlby calls it simply the price of paradise, and cynically figures it is good practice for the "great travel schedules" the NCAA is "notorious" for giving the 'Bows.

"We just do it, day to day, get in the car and go," she said. "We're not doing the driving, not flying the plane. We're just along for the ride.

"If you look down the road we're going to go from Boise to Idaho and straight to the WAC Tournament. Then hopefully we'll come back for the (NCAA) first and second rounds, but who knows? The NCAA could send us somewhere and we'll be ready. It's just another walk in the park."

Boise State coach Robin Davis, who spent the past five years winning five Big East titles as Notre Dame coach Debbie Brown's assistant, figures his old boss is ecstatic.

"I imagine Debbie is looking at the schedule Hawai'i has and figures there couldn't be a better time to play UH," Davis said. "It's (the schedule) absolutely nuts. It was out of Dave's hands I know, but it's a tough one. I think Debbie is going to look at that and figure here's her shot, I'm going to take it."

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.