A night after near-perfection, sixth-ranked Hawaii fell flat Sunday, and even a reeling opponent was not enough to cushion the fall.

The Rainbow Wahine salvaged the weekend for 25th-ranked California, handing it a 25-23, 16-25, 20-25, 25-17, 15-12 win.

The final point captured both teams’ performances perfectly.

After coming up empty on their first three match points, the Golden Bears (2-3) shanked Ali Longo’s serve backward. They popped it into the air and barely bumped it over the net.

All six Wahine watched it hit the floor, an ugly end to 2 hours and 35 minutes of ugly volleyball.

"It showed us we’ve got some hope for the future," said Cal coach Rich Feller, whose team has now defeated UH the last two times after losing the first eight meetings. "We’ve been fighting the injury bug, haven’t had the whole team practice for a couple weeks. Just not really in sync and that shows when you go out and play the good teams that, theoretically, you are supposed to be better than and they are more in tune.

"Finally, after a couple nights of practice doing it wrong, we got it right tonight."

The Wahine still captured the 25th annual Hawaiian Airlines Classic title because of a ragged win Friday over San Francisco and a sweet sweep of Baylor on Saturday.

"I knew we had won before we went into the gym," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "I wasn’t going to tell them that. It’s little consolation winning that trophy. We just need to come back and have good attitudes in practice this week."

Hawaii (5-1), which upset then-No. 6 Stanford a week earlier, is no longer unbeaten. The team traced its fall back to earth to a poor week of practice.

"It shows how quick things can turn around," said sophomore Kalei Adolpho, one of the few bright spots against Cal. "We went from feeling amazing last Sunday with the win over Stanford to how we feel right now, which is the complete opposite. It just shows what can happen if you take a week off or let your guard down. You have to have your game all the time."

By the end Sunday, Hawaii looked just like Stanford had. Its confidence was shot. Its offense left Stan Sheriff Center, and its 5,622 fans, after the third set.

UH had 14 kills and 13 errors in the final two. It had ballhandling breakdowns all night.

But Cal, in danger of falling out of the rankings for the first time in a decade, had forgotten how to win early in the match. The Wahine taught them again.

"I knew Cal was a much better team than the way they played the first two nights," Shoji said. "I don’t know if our team actually respected them enough, but again it’s hard when you watch them lose two matches. You say they’re not very good, but they are good. We still had a chance to beat them. We just didn’t close."

Cal, which lost to Penn State in the 2010 NCAA final, could not close in losses at San Diego State last week and against Baylor and USF here. It did close, however awkwardly, against Hawaii.

UH started with a whimper, giving setter Mita Uiato few options on offense aside from feeding sophomore Jane Croson high and outside. But Croson had a terrible night, finishing with 17 kills and 13 errors on 62 swings.

"We’re not a great passing team, and if you look at the stats you would wonder why Jane took the most swings when she was hitting for a low percentage," Shoji said. "But our passing forced us to set her too many times. If our passing was better we could go other places, but we had no choice."

Croson took 18 swings in the first set, almost all on off plays. The Bears, whose ballhandling was nearly as bad as Hawaii’s, took their first lead at 21-20. They outscored Hawaii 12-6 in the end to win it, looking as surprised as the Wahine.

Hawaii did not look much sharper in the second, but the Wahine got eight kills from Emily Hartong and four from Adolpho, whose offense and eight blocks were the highlight of this rough night.

And, Cal crumbled. It had just eight kills, working with a two-setter scheme and experimenting with new hitters. UH had only one block, but the Bears could not find the floor.

Their attack improved in the third, but Croson pounded out five kills in a 7-1 Wahine surge for a 23-20 lead.

They finished it off on one of Hartong’s 18 kills — to go with five blocks — but the only time Hawaii led in the final two sets was 1-0 in the fifth, when Cal served into the bottom of the net.

"The mark of a good team is consistency," Adolpho said. "That’s something I’m struggling with as a player and we are as a team. We were kind of lackadaisical Friday and then sharp Saturday and taking a step backward again Sunday. That’s something we’re going to have to work on, we’re going to get better at."

Defending NCAA champion UCLA is here this Sunday on the final night of the Verizon Challenge. The Wahine open Friday against San Diego State, coached by former Olympian and UH All-American Deitre Collins-Parker. They play former Western Athletic Conference colleague Idaho on Saturday.

Baylor 3, San Francisco 1

Alyssa Dibbern had 15 kills and Thea Munch-Soegaard added 13 as the Bears (5-1, 2-1) claimed second place with a victory over the Dons (4-3, 1-2).

Munch-Soegaard added a team-high 17 digs and was in on four of Baylor’s 12 blocks.

USF got 16 kills from Jocelyn Levig and 10 from Valentina Zaloznik. Rebecca Kopilovitch finished with a match-high 19 digs, and 49 over the three days.