Tonight’s match against UC Santa Barbara was supposed to be for first place in the Big West Conference.

Now the Hawaii women’s volleyball team is fighting just to earn a bye in the conference tournament after Cal Poly came back to shock the Rainbow Wahine 10-25, 25-22, 15-25, 25-14, 15-12 on Friday night.

A speechless SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 4,816 watched Hawaii (17-7, 10-3) win two sets by double figures but fail to close out the Mustangs (16-10, 10-4), who crept within a half-game of UH for third place.

Cal Poly libero Jolei Akima, a Kamehameha alumna, came up huge defensively with a match-high 23 digs for the Mustangs, who held Hawaii to a .143 hitting percentage or worse in three of the final four sets after losing by 15 in Set 1.

“It was tough because I think they made adjustments after the first set and we didn’t combat those adjustments,” Hawaii senior middle Amber Igiede said.

Caylen Alexander had a match-high 18 kills and junior setter Kate Lang finished with 44 assists and 16 digs.

UH’s serve receive broke down with nine reception errors over the final two sets after just one in the first three.

“They did exactly what I told my team they were going to do,” Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow said of Cal Poly. “They were just serving bullets.”

After suffering its second five-set loss of the season in conference play, UH now will need to fight to avoid having to play on the first day of the conference tournament in three weeks.

UH trails Long Beach State by a game for the second bye. A loss tonight would likely drop UH two back with four to play. UH closes its regular season with the Beach at home in two weeks.

“We’ve got to use this as a learning experience,” said Igiede, who finished with 11 kills in 22 swings. “Good thing we have film to watch and we’re going to practice hard before the game, so we should learn from this and we will be good tomorrow.”

Hawaii battled back to tie the fifth set at 12-12 on a Kendra Ham kill after trailing 9-4. Tommi Stockham put Cal Poly back in front with her team-leading 17th kill and then the final two points came on a serve-receive error and a hitting error by UH, which had won its previous 14 consecutive sets and 15 in a row at home entering the match.

“We won the first set and I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK.’ I went back in the huddle and told my team just be prepared because that team is going to keep fighting,” Ah Mow said. “All they can do is serve tough and maybe tip some balls here and there and what did they do? They served balls and they tip here, they tip there and then the girls get a little rattled.”

The loss was even more shocking considering the way the Rainbow Wahine dominated the opening set.

Cal Poly called its first timeout trailing 12-5 with Hawaii hitting .471 without an error. Not much changed by the second timeout as Cal Poly’s ninth hitting error put the Rainbow Wahine ahead 20-8.

Riley Wagoner pulled the string on a tip over the double block for the final point as UH took the opening set by 15 points.

Cal Poly found an answer in the second set in Stockham, who had seven kills to help the Mustangs tie it at one set apiece.

Cal Poly led 21-15 before UH rolled off the next four points, a run ended by a Stockham kill.

The Mustangs led 23-22 when they dug an Alexander kill attempt that ended up on the hands of Stockham, who hammered one to the back left corner for set point.

UH had the advantage and set Wagoner in the back row — she was stuffed by a double block to end it.

Ham and Igiede provided the spark UH needed to retake the lead with a good third set.

Igiede had three kills and a solo block to help UH take an 8-5 lead. Ham, who subbed in for the first time with UH ahead 9-6, put down six kills in eight swings to help Hawaii close on a 16-8 run to win a second set by double digits.

Tayli Ikenaga, who finished the match with 10 digs, seven assists and one of Hawaii’s seven aces, made an incredible diving dig off a tip to set up the first of back-to-back kills from Alexander to close it out.

The Mustangs jumped out to a 7-1 lead in the fourth set and were ahead 12-5 when the substitutions started to pour in from the Hawaii sideline.

Eleven Rainbow Wahine played in the set as Ah Mow finally found a rotation to make a run with UH trailing 18-9.

Kills by Alexander and Igiede prompted Cal Poly to use its first timeout leading 18-13 and Cal Poly responded with seven of the next eight points to force the deciding set.