HONOLULU — The final point was recorded, and the crowd dispersed to head home, but the night for the Hawaii women’s volleyball team was far from over.

For nearly an hour after a 25-23, 24-26, 27-25, 25-20 loss to USC at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday night, coach Robyn Ah Mow discussed with her team the importance of minimizing errors.

Again.

There were 32 attack errors, tying a season high established in UH’s last match, a demoralizing five-seat defeat to old rival UCLA on Sunday. This time they were accrued in four frames, two of which swung because of the many miscues.

“For me, (it’s) missed opportunities,” said Ah Mow, still seething following her postgame team meeting. “If we’re leading in each category, except for blocking and errors, we should win. … Obviously, USC is a good team, and they came out and they played. With all those errors, and two hitters hitting negative, it’s still a deuce game. There’s no excuses. We’ve just got to be better.”

UH (2-5), in its search for a new team identity in the post-Brooke Van Sickle era, continues to come up agonizingly short of a signature nonconference victory. Somehow, the Wahine won the second set despite committing 12 errors, and were within a point or two of stealing the first and third frames.

The crowd of 4,746 (5,916 tickets issued) might have taken solace in the fact that the Wahine get another crack at the Trojans (5-2) on Saturday night. That is the team’s last official nonconference match before the start of Big West play on Sept. 23.

Middle Amber Igiede had 11 kills on 19 swings, including several on step-outs, as UH’s most efficient option (.474). Freshman hitter Caylen Alexander supplied 13 kills against seven errors on 35 swings (.171), had 10 digs and set a personal best with five aces.

“Seeing their serve-receive during film, I see it as a major opportunity to get them out of system, potentially ace them,” said Alexander, whose line-drive offerings consistently cleared the net by a hair and applied pressure on the Trojans’ back row. Her timely kills near the end of Set 2 helped her team square the match.

But UH could not capitalize. Junior hitter Riley Wagoner struggled locating her shots against the USC block and finished with a career-high 13 errors, giving her 24 in the last two matches, while putting down a dozen kills Friday on a team-high 46 swings (minus-.022). Braelyn Akana also hit in the negative, with six errors to four kills (minus-.133).

For the match, UH hit .155 to USC’s .252. USC committed nine service errors before UH had its first, helping keep the Wahine around. But the Trojans still outblocked the Wahine 12.5 to 5.0.

“We should’ve had more blocks than them,” Ah Mow lamented. “We took them out of system a lot. They took better swings. We didn’t.”

Libero Tayli Ikenaga extended rallies with 18 digs, a high mark for a UH player this season.

UH clinched the second set on an Igiede ace that hit the tape and trickled over, but turnabout was fair play as Set 3 ended on a Jordan Wilson serve that did the same.

USC ran away with it in Set 4, and with UH trailed 24-15 in Set 4 and, with Igiede serving, fought off five match points to get the crowd back into it, but it was for naught as Kalyah Williams’ deflected ball couldn’t quite be chased down in the tunnel.

“If I’m being honest, I think we should’ve gotten momentum way before that,” Igiede said. “Since the beginning … it was just way too late. We shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place.”

Skylar Fields led the Pac-12 (and future Big Ten) team with 14 kills while the freshman Wilson added 12.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.