SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. » As it enters the home stretch of the regular season, and with the NCAA tournament looming, the University of Hawaii volleyball team wants to be playing in peak form.

The Rainbow Wahine were far from being at the top of their game in the fourth set of their Big West match at UC Santa Barbara on Friday night. They made mistake after mistake and fell behind 13-7. Freshman Kalei Greeley helped set the tone for a comeback that made the Gauchos nervous. UCSB won the set, but Hawaii had its mojo back.

The Rainbow Wahine cleaned up the mistakes and pulled out the match in five sets, winning 25-23, 25-23, 27-29, 19-25, 15-12. The victory raises their record to 18-6 and 10-3 in the Big West. UCSB falls to 12-14, 7-8.

Greeley led the Hawaii attack with 19 kills and a sparkling .432 hitting percentage. Nikki Taylor put down 16 kills and hit .295 and Olivia Magill added 14 kills on a .290 average. The Rainbow Wahine hit a respectable .287 in their first match coming off a bye week. Setter Tayler Higgins dished out 43 assists. Defensively, Taylor led the team with 21 digs and libero Sarah Mendoza had 16.

UCSB had a balanced attack, with five players recording double figures in kills. Ali Barbeau led the way with 22 and hit .288. Britton Taylor had 12, Jaylen Villaneuva 11 and Chanel Hoffman and Kristen Berlo 10 each. The Gauchos hit .271 as a team. Libero Phoebe Grunt led the Gaucho defense with 22 digs.

Greeley sparked the turnaround late in the fourth set with a stuff block and sharp-angled kill to cut UCSB’s lead to 18-15. A Taylor putaway after a Mendoza dig brought it to 20-18.

UCSB, behind the hitting of Villanueva and Barbeau, held off Hawaii. But the Rainbow Wahine were primed and ready to put forth a better showing in the fifth set.

"We were down about losing Game 3 and just didn’t have much fight there at the start of 4 and got behind," coach Dave Shoji said. "We seemed to rally a little bit at the end and gave us a little momentum for Game 5."

Said Greeley: "Santa Barbara really picked up their game and we were fluctuating a little bit. In the fifth set we put it together a little bit. We really wanted this win."

Shoji said Greeley has made great progress as a college player.

"Every night it seems to be somebody else (leading the team), but Greeley was really on tonight," he said. "She mixed up her shots, got a lot of key kills. She’s growing as a player — she’s still young, but she makes progress almost every week."

The fifth set went back and forth until Olivia Magill blocked an overpass to put Hawaii up 8-7. Magill followed that by snapping a Gaucho overset to the floor for a two-point lead. UCSB kept battling and had swings to tie the score. But digs by Mendoza — a Santa Barbara High graduate — and the hustle of Wahine setter Higgins set up Tai Manu-Olevao for a kill to keep the lead at two.

"She is someone who can really spark the team; she’s got that kind of spirit and attitude," Shoji said of Higgins. "At times, she struggled tonight, but when it counted she made the plays."

The Rainbow Wahine went up 13-10 after a UCSB mishandled set and a clutch play by Kalei Adolpho in the middle. With the ball seemingly hanging over the net, Adolpho used her long reach to poke the ball to the ground.

Barbeau sided out for the Gauchos and Chanel Hoffman ripped a ball to make 13-12 before Shoji called a timeout. On the next serve, Savanah Kahakai passed a perfect ball to Higgins, who fed Adolpho for the 14th point.

The Gauchos shanked Nikki Taylor’s tough serve and couldn’t make a play, giving Hawaii the deciding point.

Key — s: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d: digs; bs: block solo; ba: block assists; pts: points (kills plus blocks plus aces). Service Aces — Hawaii 3 (Mendoza 2, Higgins). UCSB 7 (Villanueva 4, Taylor 3). Service errors — Hawaii 10 (Taylor 3, Mendoza 2, Anderson, Higgins, Manu-Olevao, Kahakai, Ponce). UCSB 11 (Villanueva 5, Hoffman 2, Nielson, Santi, Barbeau, Spindt). Assists — Hawaii 62 (Higgins 43, Koelsch 8, Taylor 3, Mendoza 3, Kahakai 2, Manu-Olevao, Greeley, Adolpho). UCSB 62 (Santi 34, Nielson 21, Spindt 3, Hoffman 2, Villanueva, Barbeau). T — 2:45. A — 440. Referees — Bill Forrester, Marvin Hall.