It took seventh-ranked Hawai'i 10 points to establish its dominance over Louisiana Tech last night in Ruston, La. A little more than an hour later, the Rainbow Wahine had a 25-11, 25-20, 25-16 volleyball victory in their first road match of the season, at Thomas Assembly Center.

With their ninth straight win, the Rainbows moved to 10-2 and 3-0 in the Western Athletic Conference. They scored the first 10 points of the match against LaTech (2-8, 0-3), with Amber Kaufman serving. The Techsters never really caught up, taking their only lead at 1-0 in the second set.

Hawai'i plays at New Mexico State tomorrow (11 a.m. HST) and goes to San Jose State Monday (4 p.m.). Both matches will be broadcast live on ESPN Radio (1420 AM).

UH and NMSU have gone five sets in their last four matches in Las Cruces. This time, the 'Bows might be without freshman Kanani Herring, the WAC Player of the Week who sprained her ankle in practice Monday.

"We'll have to try to come up with several scenarios - having Kanani in and having Kanani out," UH coach Dave Shoji said last night. "That's the first thing we do tomorrow. I'd say it's 50-50 right now whether she will play. We don't want to put her in jeopardy for the rest of the year so that is foremost in our mind.

"Her overall game is so strong we would lose a little bit at every skill if she can't play."

Herring leads the team in digs, is second in kills, is a primary passer and has six double-doubles in her first 11 matches.

Redshirt freshman Stephanie Ferrell played for Herring last night and came through with eight kills on .583 hitting, with five digs and two stuffs. Senior Jamie Houston was even more imposing, blasting 21 kills in the sweep and adding 11 digs for her second double-double of the season. Houston had 10 kills in the second set - three after LaTech cut the 'Bows' lead to 16-14.

Amanda Simmons started the final set and Tara Hittle moved to hitter, with Liz Ka'aihue coming in at libero. Hawai'i scored five of the first six and never let the Techsters within three.

It out-hit LaTech .317 to .022 in the match. LaTech's attack was led by its setter, Bianca Bin, with five kills. She was the only starter to hit better than .038.

"For most of the match we focused pretty well," Shoji said. "We blocked better than we have. Their style is a little higher and slower so we could work on closing the block. We got some blocks (91/2) and touches. That's one part of our game we need to improve on and we focused well there."

Hittle had 13 digs to move ahead of Martina Cincerova and into sixth on the Hawai'i career list.