Confidence may be the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team’s most valued carry-on for its latest flight to California.

The Rainbow Wahine left Honolulu on Tuesday with four wins in their past five games and look to ride the momentum into today’s matchup with UC Riverside to open a two-game road trip.

“There’s nothing like winning to help get confidence and confidence helps you travel real well,” UH coach Laura Beeman said before the team’s departure.

The Rainbow Wahine (8-11, 4-3 BWC) and Highlanders (10-10, 4-3) will break a tie for fourth place in the Big West standings when they meet at 3 p.m. today at SRC Arena in a game shown on ESPN3.

UH concludes the trip at Cal State Northridge (9-11, 2-4) on Saturday. Both Rainbow Wahine games this week will be the front end of road doubleheaders with the UH men’s games to follow.

UC Riverside swept UH last year during an undefeated run through the Big West regular-season schedule led by two-time conference player of the year Brittany Crain, who averaged nearly 27 points per game in conference play as a senior.

Despite Crain’s departure, the Highlanders still feature the Big West’s leading scorer in 6-foot-1 senior forward Rejane Verin at 16.8 points per game. Verin also ranks third in the conference with 7.9 rebounds per game.

“They’re a team where they do what they do, there’s no surprises, but they’re very good at it,” Beeman said. “We have to be very locked in defensively and just hold true to our fundamentals, and then we have to be able to score the ball.”

After averaging 55.9 points through its first 14 games, UH has increased its output to 70.8 over the past five while shooting close to 47 percent from the field.

Guard Sarah Toeaina’s 17.3 points per game in Big West play ranks third in the conference, and the junior has scored at least 22 points in three of the past four games to raise her season scoring average to 13.4.

Forward Lahni Salanoa is shooting 58.7 percent in Big West games, good for second in the league, and is coming off a 6-for-6 performance with four 3-pointers in a home win over Cal Poly last Saturday.

Along with Toeaina and Salanoa shooting a combined 68 percent (23-for-34), UH got contributions throughout the 10-player active roster in sweeping last week’s homestand, including senior guard Briana Harris’ career-high six assists against UC Irvine and freshman forward Keleah-Aiko Koloi’s 11 rebounds against Cal Poly.

“That’s what it takes to win,” said Harris, UH’s second-leading scorer at 10.7 ppg. “It takes all of us to come in and step up. Everybody’s going to have their shining day. As long as everybody steps up and plays their role on this team it’s going to be great.”