The No. 4 Washington volleyball team was pumped up to get some revenge on No. 5 Stanford last Friday night, and their intensity paid off as the Huskies beat the Cardinal for the first time in four matches, 3-0.

The problem was that the same intensity and concentration just wasn’t there the next night against a defensive California team. The result was hard to swallow, as the Huskies went toe-to-toe with Cal before dropping their first home match all season in a 3-2 loss to the No. 13 Golden Bears.

“There was a different vibe going into the Stanford match, and we didn’t have the same thing [against Cal],” head coach Jim McLaughlin said. “It was just different.”

One day earlier, the Huskies (20-3, 10-3 Pac-10) snapped a four-match losing streak to Stanford (15-7, 8-4 Pac-10), sweeping the Cardinal 25-21, 25-23, 25-19 in front of 4,557 at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. It was an all-around effort, as senior Jill Collymore had four aces with a .385 attack percentage, while junior Jenna Hagglund added 37 assists and 13 digs.

But the momentum and good vibe from the Stanford win didn’t carry over to Saturday night, when the UW didn’t play at the level they did Friday. The Huskies started the first two sets slow, falling behind 4-0 in each set. It ended up costing them in the second set, as Cal (15-8, 8-5 Pac-10) held the UW to just .075 on offense en route to a 25-18 win.

“In all games against a good team, early points are as critical as late points,” McLaughlin said. “That’s the lesson we’ve got to learn from this, and we’ve got to learn it pretty quick.”

After making a few adjustments, the UW came out hot in the third set and pulled away with a 25-14 win. But with their backs against the wall, Cal responded. The Golden Bears had leads of 12-9 and 20-14 before finishing off the UW 25-23 in the fourth. The Huskies couldn’t regroup and nearly came back from a 13-9 deficit, but they lost the fifth set 15-13.

Cal’s blockers caused problems for the UW in the loss. The Golden Bears racked up 17 blocks while the Huskies had only 9.5.

“I thought we took really good swings [against Stanford], and we didn’t take good swings [against Cal],” McLaughlin said. “They blocked us a lot. We’re hitting right into them, and that could be a function of our timing.”

Junior Kindra Carlson was impressive for the second consecutive weekend. She racked up a career-high 26 kills Saturday and had 12 kills Friday. Carlson has now had 80 kills in the past four matches.

Despite the loss, the Huskies still have control of the Pac-10 as they sit one game ahead of Stanford and UCLA in the standings.

The UW will have one week to fix its problems before it heads to Los Angles for its final road trip against UCLA and USC. A loss like Saturday’s isn’t completely bad, McLaughlin explained, since the Huskies will have some time to work on what caused them to lose to Cal.

“A match like [the Cal match] exposes those things,” he said. “We’ve just got to get in the gym and fix it, and we’ll be OK.”

Reach reporter Taylor Soper at sports@dailyuw.com.