In its week of much-needed volleyball rest and rehabilitation, well-traveled Hawaii rose one in the national poll and clinched its 16th consecutive Western Athletic Conference regular-season volleyball title.

The Rainbow Wahine, who have won their last 19 matches, came up sixth in Monday’s AVCA Top 25, their highest ranking of the season. The Pac-12 has four of the top five, with UCLA first, Stanford third, USC fourth and Cal fifth. Nebraska is second.

Illinois and Penn State, which were ahead of UH last week, both lost and play each other Friday. The four-time defending NCAA champion Nittany Lions have six losses this year — one fewer than the previous four seasons combined.

Illinois remains No. 1 in this week’s NCAA power rating, where UH is still eighth.

Hawaii (24-1, 12-0 WAC) plays its final two home matches this week. Thursday it takes on Louisiana Tech (9-20, 0-12). Saturday, second-place New Mexico State (20-7, 9-3) is here. The Aggies were the last team to beat UH in the regular season. That was Oct. 12, 2008 — 53 matches ago — at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Saturday is senior night. Kanani Danielson, Chanteal Satele and Alex Griffiths will be honored after the match.

NMSU lost at Utah State — falling short on three match points — and Idaho in a three-day span. That clinched the WAC tournament’s No. 1 seed for Hawaii. Nevada and LaTech will not qualify for the tournament, which takes the top six.

Hawaii, which played nine matches and traveled 14,000 miles from Oct. 11-30, has been off the past week and will also be off next week. The WAC tournament opens Nov. 21 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, with seeds 3-6 playing.

Those winners take on the Wahine and the No. 2 seed the following day. The tournament championship, scheduled for 4 p.m. Hawaii time Nov. 23, will be shown live on ESPNU.

All-session tickets are on sale, for $45, at the UH box office and wacsportsvolleyballtournament.com. Single-session tickets ($20 adults and $10 students) go on sale Nov. 21 at the Orleans.

Notes

» Kanani Danielson, UH’s three-time All-American, is running a close second to North Carolina’s Kaylie Gibson in the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award contest. Fans can vote daily at seniorclassaward.com, until Nov. 21. Gibson has collected 35 percent of the vote and Danielson 33.1. The other eight candidates are at 6.8 and less. Fan balloting counts for one-third of the total, with the rest determined by coaches and media.

» Hawaii has four players hitting better than .300, and all are among the top 160 nationally. Sophomore Emily Hartong is 18th, at .390, followed by Chanteal Satele (48th at .352), Brittany Hewitt (79th at .337) and Danielson (156th at .309). Danielson is also 43rd in kills (4.04) and 37th in points (4.64). Hewitt ranks 18th in blocks (1.41) and sophomore setter Mita Uiato 23rd in assists (11.22).

» As a team, UH is second in hitting (.303) and winning percentage (.960), ninth in kills (14.51), 14th in blocks (2.77), 16th in assists (13.27) and 60th in aces (1.45). It lags far behind — 219th out of 322 D-I teams— in digs (14.25). That statistic is led by Yale, which does not offer athletic scholarships, at 19.0.