David Rubio knows that his young team will experience highs and lows this season, but is hoping to get all that worked out before the postseason.

The Arizona volleyball coach was right on with that statement this past weekend in the team's matches with No. 4 Stanford and California.

The young Wildcats - a team with only three seniors - showed signs of maturity, but also displayed their lack of experience.

Playing against the nation's top teams is the best way to judge where you stand among the elite programs, and Arizona had a chance to prove themselves against the Cardinal.

That is exactly what they did.

The match started slowly, with the Wildcats losing the first two games.

With such a young team, Arizona could have easily packed it in and given up.

But that did not occur.

Arizona's three seniors -- Shannon Torregrosa, Lisa Rutledge and Rachel Williams - showed their experience and the young Wildcats quickly matured.

For the first time this season, the Wildcats fired on all cylinders and played as a cohesive unit.

"We were not having fun in the first two games," freshman Kim Glass said. "We were showing no emotion. (Then) we just came out and had fun and played our game. It was nice a great experience for our team and these are the type of matches you want when you come to play for a school like Arizona."

One struggle the Wildcats have had this season is setting its middle blockers and having a balanced attack.

The Cardinal, who statistically own the best defense in the Pacific 10 Conference, tamed the Wildcats' attempt at a balanced offensive attack in the first two frames.

During the remainder of the match, senior setter Laurie Gardner began to finally click with Torregrosa and freshman Bre Ladd.

Ladd and Torregrosa combined for 19 kills and it was the first time this season that Arizona was able to gain offensive production from its four main threats - Torregrosa, Rutledge, Ladd and Glass.

"Setting the middles is important to our offense," Ladd said. " Our involvement fluctuates from match to match and we have been working on becoming more involved. Laurie and the middle are beginning to click. It is just going to continue to be a process."

Arizona never stopped battling and eventually pulled off a 3-2 upset.

It marked the third consecutive match that Arizona was taken to a fifth game. UA is now 2-1 on the season in five game matches.

With such a grueling match - physically and emotionally - Rubio knew that it would be a struggle to have to play the following evening.

The same team that matured and showed signs of greatness one night before folded against California.

"We beat ourselves," Glass said. "We know that we are a better team than Cal, but we did not show that. We all made too many mistakes. Cal made some plays, but they watched us give them the match."

Cal entered the match coming off a tough five game defeat to ASU the night before, but it came out and overcame its fatigue have the 0-3 upset.

"I told everyone that this season was going to filled with many ups and downs," Rubio said. "This is exactly what I was talking about. We have to be ready to play every night if we want to be successful in this conference. It is a sign of a champion if they come out and play tough in back to back nights and we aren't there yet."

With a weekend filled with excitement, joy, sadness and disappointment, Arizona learned a lot about the character of its team.

"Beating Stanford definitely outweighs the negative aspects of losing to Cal," Rubio said. "We proved that we can play at the highest level and sustain that for a match. We have to be able to play at the level consistently. I am confident we will do that by the end of the season."