Nittaidai can see Mount Fuji from its Tokyo campus.

On Wednesday, the Japanese team continually saw Mount Hawaii during an exhibition volleyball match at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The Rainbow Warriors had 19.5 blocks against the smaller visitors, with senior middle Patrick Gasman in on nine in the 19-25, 25-18, 25-17, 25-20 victory. A crowd of 2,564 watched energetic and entertaining volleyball for 83 minutes as Nittaidai lived up to the Japanese tradition of quick, defensive play with 42 digs.

The statistics won’t count except in the minds of the teams who’ll meet again at 7 p.m. Friday.

Senior opposite Rado Parapunov, playing in the first three sets, had a team-high 10 kills and three aces, and added six blocks. Ryo Takahashi, a 6-foot-2 opposite, finished with a match-high 13 kills for Nittaidai.

>> Photo Gallery: Exhibition men’s volleyball: Hawaii vs. Nittaidai

“They are a really fun team to play against, because they play a completely different style of volleyball than we’re used to,” said Gasman, adding eight kills and one of UH’s seven aces when playing the first three sets. “We play BYU next week and they are completely opposite. Nittaidai is low and fast, digging everything. BYU is a big team.

“Forty-two digs very impressive. Very no bueno with our 15 errors in Set 1. Going into the game we knew it was an exhibition and we were prepping for BYU. It didn’t register how good this team is. After we got kicked in the mouth in Set 1 it kicked in. We turned in on in Set 2 and kicked them in the mouth.”

The wakeup call of Set 1 was the first opening set the Warriors have dropped at home this season. Hawaii, leading the country in hitting percentage (.385), hit .167 and was outdug 12-4 by Nittaidai’s frustrating defense.

After six service errors in Set 1, the Warriors cleaned up their serving (two errors) and their hitting efficiency (.556, no hitting errors) while continuing to dominate at the net. Hawaii outblocked Nittaidai 5-0 and Warrior middles Gasman and Guilherme Voss had a combined nine kills with no errors on 11 swings.

The Warriors led the entire way in Set 3, the highlight perhaps being Colton Cowell — second on the team in kills at 3.84 per set — not picking up his first kill until giving Hawaii a 1-0 lead. Gasman added three more kills and three blocks in Set 3 before being replaced by Max Rosenfeld in Set 4.

Rosenfeld was one of five “second unit” players with only Voss and junior libero Gage Worsley unchanged. Freshman hitter Chaz Galloway and freshman opposite Dimitrios Mouchlias each had four kills, and Hawaii added another five blocks, including the stuff by senior hitter James Anastassiades and freshman middle Alaka‘i Todd to end it.

“Said to the guys during the timeout in the first set, ‘Look, they’re from Japan, not Mars,’ ” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “It was such a different style and it took us a while to adjust. We settled down and played some pretty high-level volleyball.

“It is a different mind-set. You may have to hit the ball three or four times. There’s balls that you hit that you think are down, or balls that you block that you think are down, and they keep covering and bringing them back up. It was good for us to play against a different style and be more efficient.”

Nittaidai coach Kenji Yamamoto thought it also was good training for his team.

“Hawaii’s student players are very tall, hard to block,” he said through an interpreter. “We get good training from this because they are taller and hard blocking.”

As for preparing for Friday?

“Back at the hotel, once more we will try the defensive training … revenge the day after tomorrow,” Yamamoto said, adding a laugh.