Washington faced its first ranked volleyball opponent of the season last night in sixth-ranked Hawai'i. For an hour, the second-ranked Huskies never noticed.

Washington (8-0) remained unbeaten by sweeping the Rainbow Wahine, 30-18, 30-24, 30-28, before a crowd of 6,757 at Stan Sheriff Center. The teams meet again tonight at 6.

With six starters back from its first final-four team, UW has won all 24 of its games this season. Until last night, it had allowed opponents into the 20's only twice.

Hawai'i (5-4) equaled that total but never truly challenged the Huskies until deep into the second game. The only drama came in the third, as the 'Bows were swept at home for the first time in more than two years.

"I'm hoping the third game was more indicative of our team than the first two," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "We started so slow. They obviously are a great team, but we couldn't do anything right. We couldn't pass, couldn't defend it, couldn't block it. We were just half a step slow the first and second game. It was disappointing we weren't ready to play."

Shoji put the libero jersey back on Ashley Watanabe in the final game, for the first time in five matches. She and the rest of the seniors put Hawai'i on their backs, with Susie Boogaard (5 for 11) and Victoria Prince (4 for 7) anchoring the offense and Watanabe giving Kanoe Kamana'o spectacular defensive support.

"I think Ashley was probably the only one who played up to her capabilities," Shoji said. "She played great D (defense) and kept us in the game. She had played well last weekend so I was close to putting her back in the position. I probably should have done it earlier. She'll be in that position tomorrow (tonight)."

The third game was tied 13 times until the 'Bows scored five in a row to go up 18-14. Prince had half her six stuffs in the surge. But Washington came out of its timeout with two stuffs, caught UH at 19, and moved ahead 28-26.

Hawai'i tied it behind a kill from Tara Hittle — in the front row for the first time this season — and its ninth block.

The Huskies called their last timeout and closed it with kills by Christal Morrison and first-team All-America setter Courtney Thompson. Morrison (18 kills) and Sanja Tomasevic (14), UW's second-team All-Americans, led the offense.

The 'Bows didn't have a hitter in double figures for the first time in recent memory, though middles Prince (9 for 19) and Juliana Sanders (8 for 19) both hit over .300. For most of the first two games, UH struggled just to get a good pass. Washington even gave Hawai'i eight points on service errors in the second game, but it didn't help.

"They didn't do anything life-threatening," Watanabe said of the Huskies. "They just played volleyball, simply put. That's all we had to do. Block a ball, dig a ball, it's very simple volleyball. Maybe we overwhelm ourselves sometimes with so much responsibility that we don't need to take care of."

Washington scored the first four points of the match. The Rainbow Wahine hung on early behind Sanders and Jamie Houston, but at 10-13 the roof fell in as UW scored six straight.

Pieces kept falling the rest of the night. The 'Bows ran into each other or, worse, watched each other as balls dropped. When they did get a rally going in the first two games, the outside hitters often killed it — the rally, not the ball.

The Huskies stuffed five balls a game, hit .362, and fired eight aces. Hawai'i got more than half its digs (23) in the final game, or it would have been blown away in that statistic, too.

"I don't want to say we freak out, but it takes us a while to adjust," Watanabe said.

Until the end, the Rainbow Wahine were no more of a threat than the underwhelming UW victims — every heard of Gardner-Webb? — that had come before.

"People were concerned that we hadn't been tested," Washington coach Jim McLaughlin said. "We're tested every day in training. We train at a high level and all I want to see is the transfer of that training to game day. I don't think we get confidence from beating (No. 1) Nebraska. We get confidence in our gym."

The Rainbow Wahine are desperately seeking that confidence. Shoji said everyone is an option on the left side tonight. The position hit negative last night.

"It just wasn't pretty for a long time and that's disturbing," Shoji said. "It felt like our team just wasn't prepared, and that's the fault of the coach."

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.