HONOLULU - In the first game of the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic, the American University volleyball team fell to 25th-ranked UCLA in straight sets, 19-25, 19-25, 18-25.

Senior Allison Cappellino had a team-high eight kills for the Eagles, while classmate Kristyna Lindovska added seven kills and four blocks.

For the Bruins, Jordan Anderson finished with a match-high 13 kills, while Reilly Buechler added 11 kills.

The first set started out as a back-and-forth affair between both teams, with the score tied at 10-10 early on. However, UCLA began to pull ahead, closing out the set on a 9-4 run to capture the 25-19 victory.

The Bruins were in control for much of the second set, holding their largest lead at 20-11. The Eagles battled back, but could not get any closer than five points.

In the final set, American fell into a 6-1 hole and never recovered. After UCLA increased its advantage to 21-13, the Eagles put together a quick 4-0 run, but it wasn't enough to overcome its early deficit.

"UCLA came off a tough loss last week and we knew they were going to be hungry to play," said American head coach Barry Goldberg. "We couldn't handle their firepower. They just continued to get kills. I don't think our defense was ready enough to handle a team that was going to hit like that.

"They were emotionally ready to come in here and get on fire. UCLA took it to us pretty good. We couldn't respond in the way we needed to in order to be successful."

The Eagles have another challenge ahead of them as they take on tournament host Hawaii, ranked 17th in the nation, Saturday at 7 p.m. (HT).

"We need our team to have a better vision of where we need to put the ball and how we need to aggressively attack other teams," said Goldberg. "Tonight we couldn't really get it clicking. We had a couple of runs, moments where it thought we were on our way back. Then there was a play or two that didn't go our way, and we didn't respond as well as we needed to in order to be successful."