The chaser has become the chased one.

For the first time this season, Hawaii heads out on the road as the Big West volleyball leader. The 19th-ranked Rainbow Wahine took over first place with last week’s wins over then-co-leaders UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly, and are a half-game ahead of the Gauchos and Mustangs.

The plan is to have it stay that way. With four matches remaining, Hawaii (20-3, 10-2) controls its title destiny.

Bottom line? Win and in.

Should the Wahine win all four, it would guarantee Hawaii the Big West’s automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. If that happens, the Wahine would finish 14-2 in league and the best that either UCSB (19-3 9-2) or Cal Poly (16-6, 9-2) could do would be tie at 14-2.

The Mustangs host the Gauchos on Saturday.

Hawaii holds the tiebreaker on both. It would give the Wahine their first championship since 2016 and give coach Robyn Ah Mow the first in her three seasons, having finished second in the previous two.

“I’m not even thinking that far ahead,” Ah Mow said as the team prepared to leave today for matches at UC Davis and UC Riverside. “I’m not going to talk about it.

“It comes down to whether the girls follow the scouting report. If they follow it, we’re good. Mainly for me it comes down to taking care of what we do on our side. It’s one game at a time.”

First up is UC Davis, which nearly pulled off an upset on Oct. 20 at the Stan Sheriff Center. Instead, Hawaii pulled off the reverse sweep, 22-25, 21-25, 25-22, 25-17, 15-12.

“We’re all pumped and ready to play our best,” said Hanna Hellvig, the reigning Big West Freshman of the Week. “I feel like earlier in the season we were nervous but now we’re just having fun.

“We’ve made such a comeback from our losses and now we’re just excited to win the rest of the games. We have the fight in us and it shows that we’ve been able to come back.”

Hellvig had 16 kills against the Aggies and 10 in the 25-17, 25-18, 25-12 sweep of the Highlanders on Oct. 18.

It’s the final regular-season road trip of their careers for Hawaii seniors Bailey Choy, Norene Iosia, McKenna Ross and Kirsten Sibley, as well as redshirt junior Rika Okino, who is graduating in May.

“This season is flying by, it’s never been this fast all the other seasons,” said Okino, named the conference Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. “We celebrated this weekend really nicely and now we’re ready to refocus this week of practice.

“We struggled with Davis. We need to take care of business this week.”

Hawaii has won its last seven, the streak beginning with the sweep of Riverside. The Wahine visit the Highlanders on Sunday.

Both UC Davis (14-11, 6-6) and UC Riverside (6-17, 2-10) won their respective home matches Tuesday.

The Aggies pulled away from Cal State Fullerton 20-25, 25-15, 25-19, 25-7. The Highlanders held off UC Irvine 11-25, 25-21. 25-20, 21-25, 15-8.