It was a tough loss. A very tough loss.

But it’s one that No. 10 Hawaii wants to remember — not forget — and build upon the rest of the season.

"We’re a young team out there, at many positions," Rainbow Wahine junior middle Brittany Hewitt said after Sunday night’s 25-20, 28-26, 20-26, 25-17 loss to No. 12 UCLA. "Our freshmen are doing awesome jobs, but they need to experience a loss to show what needs to be worked on.

"Give UCLA props. They played an amazing match, picked up on our weaknesses. We need to go back into the gym this week and work hard on individual skills and also playing together."

Hewitt finished the Hawaiian Airlines Classic as the top blocker. The five block assists against the Bruins gave her 20 total blocks for the three-day tournament. She also had 10 kills Sunday, with one hitting error on 20 swings.

UCLA coach Mike Sealy wasn’t surprised about Hewitt’s performances. Asked what she needed to improve on, Hawaii’s former associate head coach said, "Nothing."

"She’s 6-4. She’s always been a great blocker, but she’s become an offensive threat," he said. "Brittany, don’t take this the wrong way, but she came in as the big, goofy kid from Idaho without a ton of high-level experience.

"She was amazing as a freshman, helped get Hawaii to the final four, held her own against the top-ranked team in the country (Penn State). Now she’s doing so many other things, like serving and defense."

And, at 6-foot-4, Hewitt is the tallest Wahine in the starting lineup. Minus their setter and libero, the Bruins averaged 6-3.

"They had that (height) advantage, but they also had Mike (Sealy), who knew our tendencies," Hewitt said. "And they dug like crazy. Some of those balls they popped up would have been kills against anybody else.

"I can’t pinpoint one thing that lost it for us. There were times that we didn’t play together well. Losing Game 2 definitely gave them momentum, but we did come back to win Game 3. We’ll use this week to keep growing and figure out how to stay up the whole match."

"She had a good night tonight," Hawaii coach Dave Shoji said of Hewitt. "She’s blocked well the last couple of nights. It’s always harder for a middle to adjust to a new setter, but she’s playing well. We need her to keep getting better."

The Hawaii middles had a combined 57 swings, with sophomore Emily Hartong taking 37, putting down 16 with two errors in earning all-tournament honors. It was a lot of attempts for middles, but "with UCLA stacking the block on Kanani (Danielson), we had a lot of one-on-ones for our middles.

"I thought we played well tonight, but we had trouble stopping their 6-5, 6-4 players."