Hawaii junior opposite Nikki Taylor was named the Big West’s Player of the Week on Monday, her fourth weekly volleyball honor this season and first since three-peating in the first three weeks of the season.

Also Monday, the Rainbow Wahine (23-1, 13-0 Big West) dropped a spot to No. 8 in the AVCA Coaches Division I Top 25. Hawaii, riding an 18-match win streak, also moved up five spots to 27 in the Ratings Percentage Index.

Taylor put down 21 kills with nine digs and was in on five blocks in Sunday’s four-set win at UC Davis. It was the sixth time this season that the Kaiser High graduate had 20 or more kills.

Taylor is the fourth Rainbow Wahine to earn four weekly conference honors in the same season. The others were Heather Bown (1999), Kim Willoughby (2001) and Emily Hartong (2012 and 2013).

In the Top 25, only No. 5 Texas (22-2) remained in the same spot as last week with the other top 11 teams moving around. USC (27-1), receiving 47 votes, moved up a place to No. 1 with Washington (24-2, 10 votes) and Minnesota (23-3, 7) both moving up a spot helped by former No. 1 Penn State (24-3) being upset at Minnesota. 

The Nittany Lions fell to No. 4, followed by Texas and Nebraska (22-4). The Cornhuskers leapfrogged both Stanford (18-6) and Hawaii (23-1) to jump two places to No. 6, moving the Cardinal and Rainbow Wahine down one.

UCLA (21-5), the only team to defeat Hawaii this season, fell two spots from No. 9 to No. 11.

In the RPI, the computer-generated ranking that is used by the NCAA selection committee to seed the postseason tournament, Hawaii moved to 27 after being at 32 the past two weeks. Minnesota moved into the top spot followed by Texas and USC. 

Hawaii remains the only team in the top 10 of the coaches poll that is not in the top 12 of the RPI. The Rainbow Wahine have already clinched at least a share of the Big West title and can win it outright with a victory at UC Irvine on Tuesday.