HONOLULU — Robyn Ah Mow’s patience was tested in the second set of Hawaii’s Big West volleyball clash with UC Riverside on Saturday night.

Patience passed.

The Rainbow Wahine rallied from an eight-point deficit to take the set and dispatch the lowly Highlanders, 25-17, 25-23, 25-13 at SimpliFi Arena.

UH, to the dismay of its coach and the crowd, fell behind by several points early in Set 2 and eventually 17-9 before the Wahine buckled down and moved to 29-0 all-time against Riverside.

“I pat myself on the back because I never yell today,” said UH’s sixth-year coach, who grinned as she physically reached around to tap herself. “I stayed calm. But if that was the first year, oh yeah. I probably would’ve had a red face and everything. Definitely different. I think the trust is there in the team. I think, because I trust them that they’re going to come back and they’re going to do their job.”

She double checked with setter Kate Lang, sitting next to her at the interview table. “Did I yell today?”

Lang confirmed that she didn’t.

For the most part, there was no reason to as UH (5-5 overall) moved to 2-0 in the Big West with a sweep performance for the second straight night.

Freshman hitter Caylen Alexander had her most efficient game to date with 15 kills and no errors on 27 swings (.556 hitting) and middle Amber Igiede was also error-free on a 12-kill night (.571).

UH nearly doubled up UCR (2-9, 0-2) in digs, 60 to 35. Three Wahine were in double figures, led by libero Tayli Ikenaga’s 17. Riley Wagoner and Talia Edmonds had 11.

Riverside led in the second for the last time at 23-22. From there, Igiede solo roofed Anya Green and Wagoner (12 kills) put down consecutive balls.

Lang said of having to rally, “I know my relationship with my passers is really important, so I just tried telling them, ‘hey, just get the ball up. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Let’s just get some sort of swing out of it. We can trust everybody else on the court to do their job, too. Don’t feel the pressure too much.’”

Hawaii again plays on consecutive nights next week as it heads out for its first Big West road games, to Cal State Fullerton (7-3, 1-1) on Friday and Long Beach State (6-4, 1-1) on Saturday.

UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly were the other two Big West teams to go 2-0 on the opening week of league play.

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