The Hawaii volleyball team’s postseason please-please-please hopes are on life support after Saturday night’s 25-21, 25-20, 25-19 loss to UC Santa Barbara in the Stan Sheriff Center.

A season-high crowd of 2,254 stared in dismay as the Warriors fell to 8-14 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and the brink of elimination from playoff contention.

The top eight teams qualify for the MPSF playoffs. The Gauchos (10-10) claimed the seventh spot with their fifth MPSF victory in a row.

Cal State Northridge (9-11) needs to win one of its remaining regular-season matches to earn the eighth berth. The Warriors play their alumni match next week before going on the road for their final two regular-season matches against UC San Diego.

The Warriors, who called for 16 floor wipes to try to slow the Gauchos on Saturday, are not ready to throw in the proverbial towel.

"It’s the wild MPSF," UH coach Charlie Wade said. "We have a week to regroup and play the alumni game and, hopefully, those matches will be relevant down in San Diego. That would be great."

If the Warriors were to miss the postseason for the second consecutive year, they could point to a match in which they were consistently inconsistent.

"Somewhere," Wade said, "we kind of lost our mojo."

Maybe it was the final weekend of spring break. Maybe it was a starting lineup featuring four second-year players. Maybe …

"I don’t know, we were just out of rhythm," Wade said. "We were a little off. And in this league, if you’re off a little, you’re probably going to lose."

In the first set, the Warriors fell behind 17-9 following UCSB middle blocker Ryan Thompson’s five-point scoring run, closed to 22-21, and then failed to defend three consecutive spikes by the Gauchos.

In the second set, Austin Kingi, the third outside option, slammed seven kills without an error.

In the final set, Grant Goswiller, an outside replacement after Miles Evans sprained his left ankle, slammed four kills and hit .600.

The Gauchos already were without their top setter, Jonah Seif, who was suffering from a virus. Middle blocker Jake Staahl replaced Thompson, whose accuracy from behind the service line was not transferable to the front row.

"We have a really, really tight team," UCSB coach Rick McLaughlin said. "We train every guy and get them ready to go. It’s just ‘the next guy up,’ and they rise to the challenge."

Kingi said: "We started figuring it out. We got into a rhythm. Every time we got down, we knew we would come back. We were just rolling. We had a bunch of momentum. And our setter (Andrew Kocur) was utilizing me a lot."

The Gauchos received a boost from Evan Licht, a 6-foot-4 opposite. He entered the two-match series hitting under .200. He finished with 18 kills and hit .533, with half of his spikes launched from the back right.

"It’s been that way for us all year," McLaughlin said.