In a weird, woeful and ultimately wonderful volleyball match for ninth-ranked Hawaii, it got hammered early then hammered back Saturday to hand Pacific its third consecutive five-set loss.

The Rainbow Wahine weathered a torrid Tigers start to win, 14-25, 22-25, 25-16, 25-14, 15-11, before 5,944 at Stan Sheriff Center.

The Big West victory took 2 hours, 19 minutes and stretched UH’s NCAA-best conference winning streak to 65.

An hour into it, it appeared that streak — built over more than four years — would be history. Pacific was playing all but flawlessly, out-hitting Hawaii by 300 points and finding offense from every inch of the court.

They made the Wahine look awful up until what would be one of many Emily Maeda service runs that cut their second-set deficit to 22-21. The Tigers would finish the set off tentatively. They had already lost their swagger.

"I don’t know what’s going on over there," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "I thought they played great. They couldn’t keep up what they were doing. No one hits 40 percent, which they were doing. I thought, if they keep that up we were done. We couldn’t stop them."

And then the Wahine could — with a huge assist from Pacific (16-6, 4-5), which got big games from three freshmen.

Hawaii ran away with the third and fourth sets, scoring in bunches with Maeda and Ginger Long serving and a rejuvenated Emily Hartong again leading the attack.

Hartong got huge assists offensively and defensively from freshman Jade Vorster, who had a career-high 13 kills, tied a career high with eight blocks and hit .650, and transfer Ashley Kastl, who had her second double-double in a row (11 kills, 15 digs).

Everybody else — Shoji used 14 players — did precisely what they had to, at least in the final three sets.

The Wahine took the lead for good in the final set at 5-4. They stretched it to 9-6 behind Vorster. Hartong and Kastl closed it out after a controversial net call gave UOP one last gasp at 12-9.

Tigers coach Greg Gibbons felt the tide turning at the end of the second set, taking both timeouts late despite a three-point lead.

"There were some things they (the Wahine) were doing," he said. "They started to turn up their game, had more of a sense of urgency. And we started making unforced errors and playing a little timid, which you obviously can’t. We played hard, but Hawaii did some really good things. They definitely started to attack the ball and move it around a little more."

The Wahine fell in the opening set for the third straight match, scoring a season-worst 14 points. After cutting an early deficit to one, UH lost 10 of the last 11 points as the Tigers hit .483.

Hawaii hit 400-plus points less, only because Vorster went 4-for-5. Her teammates combined for just four more kills and hit negative .077.

The Tigers remained on a remarkable roll through almost the entire second set. In the opener, it was Jennifer Sanders (6-for-7) who broke loose. In Set 2, freshman Kat Schulz went off along with the UOP block, which stuffed five more balls against a UH attack in disarray.

The Wahine fell behind by as many as six (18-12) before they finally put together some semblance of a rally, with the help of the Tigers’ first signs of vulnerability.

With Hawaii’s offense still in neutral — when it wasn’t in reverse — UOP called its first timeout still leading 20-17. It called its last with a 22-19 advantage, made only its second hitting error on the next point and watched Maeda’s ace drop to make it a one-point game.

The Tigers won a defensive battle to end the 4-0 run, but a ballhandling error made it 23-22.

At that stage, the Wahine ran out of rally. The ball fell through backup setter Monica Stauber’s hands and Hartong hit the antenna on set point, dropping her hitting percentage to zero.

But instead of riding momentum into the break, the Tigers looked glum. They hit negative .029 in the third, spraying more errors (nine) than kills (eight). It got worse in the fourth, with Long serving nine in a row as the Wahine began to grab the confidence UOP let get away.