The bad news came early, then it quickly got buried in the sand.

No. 5 Hawaii came into Saturday’s USAV Beach Collegiate Challenge undefeated at 3-0. Less than an hour later, that perfect record was gone, swept away by No. 1 Pepperdine 5-0 on the sands of the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif.

The SandBows rebounded with a 5-0 sweep of Cal State Northridge and a 4-1 win over Cal State Bakersfield, playing the latter without 2012 sand All-American Brittany Tiegs (back). Tiegs also won’t be playing Sunday in the pairs tournament, an event that started late Saturday. All three Hawaii pairs that competed advanced to Sunday’s main draw.

"Pepperdine played really well," UH coach Scott Wong said. "They keep it pretty simple, but they do that well. As I told our girls, you want to be playing the best and they are the best right now.

"I think we came out a little anxious against them, weren’t very crisp. But when I look at how we battled back against (Cal State) Bakersfield, I liked the way our Nos. 3, 4, 5, came back after dropping the first set. That showed a lot of character."

No. 3 Ginger Long-Ali Longo, No. 4  London Chow-Olivia Urban and No. 5 Hannah Rooks-Tayler Higgins all dropped their first sets to the Roadrunners. While Rooks-Higgins dominated in winning Set 3 15-6, Long-Longo hung on for a 15-13 victory and Chow-Urban lost 15-13.

As Wong noted, instead of 4-1, the SandBows just as easily could have been 3-2.

Wong said he decided to rest Tiegs and her nagging back injury, hoping it will help her be ready for Wednesday’s dual matches against Arizona and USC at Queen’s Beach.