In surfing, it’s “Hang Ten.”

In beach volleyball, it’s “Hang One” … or at least that’s the goal of No. 5 Hawaii this week. The Rainbow Wahine left for Huntington Beach, Calif., Wednesday for the inaugural Big West beach volleyball championship tournament focused on turning a dream into a reality.

“Hanging a banner is so important,” senior All-American Katie Spieler said. “It’s something we’ve been working so hard for and now we have the opportunity to achieve it.

“It’s about turning those dreams into a reality, going out there and playing how we prepared to play.”

Hawaii (13-8), the top seed, has a bye into Friday’s second round at the Beach Boulevard courts and will face the winner of the day’s opening match between fourth-seeded Cal State Bakersfield (4-12) and fifth-seeded Cal Poly (5-10). On the other side of the six-team bracket is No. 2 seed Long Beach State (11-12), which also received a first-round bye. The 49ers, host of this event, meet the winner of third seed Cal State Northridge (6-12) and sixth seed Sacramento State (0-19) in the other second-round contest of the double-elimination tournament.

While Hawaii, with its top-3 RPI, is all but guaranteed a berth in next week’s inaugural NCAA championship tournament, Long Beach State likely would need to defeat the SandBows for the Big West title to solidify an at-large selection. Next week’s field will have three teams from the west region, three from the east region and two at-larges; the selection show is Sunday on NCAA.com at 4 p.m. Hawaii time.

“You never know with a (selection) committee,” 49ers coach Mike Campbell said during last week’s Aloha Invitational at Queen’s Beach. “I don’t feel that confident about the at-large. I hope they recognize that our losses are to teams inside the Top 5 (USC twice and Hawaii twice, Pepperdine and UCLA three times). But you never know.”

The 49ers, who won the 2013 AVCA national beach title, didn’t help themselves last week when going 2-2. The 4-1 loss to Hawaii wasn’t a “bad loss” but losing 4-1 to unranked Grand Canyon — all five flights going to three sets — was not good for the resume.

“Their backs are against the wall,” Hawaii volunteer coach Danny Alvarez said of the 49ers. “They’re always going to be a rival, someone we measure ourselves against.

“But Jeff (UH head coach Hall) has made it a point to have that first Big West championship banner here so that’s motivation for our team.”

“Being able to hang a banner any time is special but it’s a neat situation to be the first,” Hall said. “We have that special opportunity to do so and it’s something that our kids can have forever.”

Hawaii is traveling 14 players and will not return to Honolulu if selected to the three-day NCAA tournament. Play begins next Friday at Gulf Shores, Ala., which hosted the first four championships that were sponsored by the AVCA.