From the start, the 95th men’s volleyball meeting between Hawaii and UCLA had the look of a classic.

The 12th sellout crowd in program history filled SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center for the duel between the top two teams in the national polls and ended the night in full roar when Hawaii’s Kurt Nusterer and Jakob Thelle teamed on a walk-off block to give the No. 1 Rainbow Warriors a 29-27, 21-25, 25-22, 28-26 victory over the second-ranked Bruins in the finale of the 27th Outrigger Volleyball Invitational on Saturday.

Hawaii opposite Dimitrios Mouchlias put away a season-high 22 kills while hitting .390 to help the Warriors bounce back some 24 hours after having a 25-match winning streak snapped with a four-set loss to Penn State.

“To be honest we were really upset after last night because we didn’t play well,” Mouchlias said. “We were upset and we gave everything, and with these fans, it’s super exciting.

“It doesn’t matter if you hit the ground hard, you have to get every ball.”

Mouchlias was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player and was joined on the all-tournament team by Thelle and outside hitter Spyros Chakas.

Three teams finished the tournament at 2-1 and No. 3 Penn State, which defeated UH on Friday and swept Purdue Fort Wayne in Saturday’s first match, was awarded the tournament title by set-win percentage. The tiebreaker gave Hawaii (17-1) second place and UCLA (19-2) placed third.

All three could reconvene in Virginia in May for the National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship hosted by George Mason.

“Getting a chance to play against these kinds of teams in this environment, it is a championship-level feel,” UH coach Charlie Wade said. “High-level play in front of a big crowd — we thrive on that and I think it helped us become a better team tonight.”

A turnstile crowd of 9,308 witnessed the Warriors rally from a 23-20 deficit to win the first set and watched as UCLA held off a UH comeback in the second.

UH middle blocker Guilherme Voss was in on three consecutive blocks in a 7-0 UH run early in the third set and later hammered an overpass to give UH an 11-5 lead. UCLA chopped into the deficit and caught the Warriors at 20-20. UH closed the third set with a 5-2 run capped by Thelle’s tip into the middle of the court, set up by Chaz Galloway’s pinpoint pass to the net, to take the lead in the match.

UCLA led throughout the fourth set, before UH chipped away and caught the Bruins at 23-23 when Mouchlias scored on an out-of-system kill.

UH fought off two set points and UCLA survived a match point before Nusterer, who started in place of an ailing Cole Hogland for the second time in the tournament, and Thelle put down the final block to end the match.

“(Nusterer) helped me pretty good there,” Thelle said. “Because he was blocking the other balls going the other way, so that was kind of my chance to get a block for probably the first time this season.

“Just based off the maturity of the group that have been together for so long, we’re always staying calm in the moment even though the game is very intense toward the end. … We just feed off the crowd and stay calm and collected together. That’s what we did and that’s the reason we won today. We stayed patient and made plays when it mattered the most.”

UCLA opposite Ido David led four Bruins in double figures with 21 kills and 6-foot-8 freshman Zach Rama provided a spark off the bench with 12 kills in 19 swings in the first meeting between the programs since 2018.

The sellout was UH’s first since a reverse sweep against BYU on March 6, 2020, in the year’s final match before the COVID-19 shutdown.

“Thought the atmosphere was great. Seems like the old days, when Hawaii and UCLA were playing in front of sold-out crowds,” said UCLA coach John Speraw, who played for the Bruins in the inaugural Outrigger in 1995. “Great for the sport. Love the crowd. Fun place to play volleyball.”

The Warriors open Big West play, and close a five-week homestand, with a two-match series with No. 4 Long Beach State starting Friday.