The two historic powers in Big West women’s volleyball will decide the winner of the conference’s first formal tournament in the sport.

After Long Beach State stunned regular-season champion and top-seeded UC Santa Barbara in five sets at the Walter Pyramid, Hawaii joined the host Beach in the Outrigger Big West championship match by sweeping Cal Poly, 25-17, 25-18, 26-24, on Friday night.

UH (22-8) and LBSU (21-9) split the season series, with each winning on its home court. UH beat the Beach in four at the Stan Sheriff Center one week ago, a match with dramatic swings of momentum that allowed the Rainbow Wahine to vault straight into the semifinals.

First serve for Saturday’s championship is 3 p.m. Hawaii time. The winner will go to the NCAA Tournament; the loser will go home.

“It’s going to be awesome,” UH coach Robyn Ah Mow said. “It’s their home stadium, we have a good following. I think the crowd’s going to be awesome tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.”

The Wahine have been accustomed to winning the Big West regular season to punch their automatic NCAA Tournament berth, and the introduction of a conference tournament this year was seen by some as a meddlesome impediment that could cost UH a berth. However, with the way the season shook out with UCSB at the top and UH in no position for an at-large berth, the Wahine are counting on the tournament championship as their means to extend their NCAA qualification streak to 30.

Sophomore hitter Caylen Alexander came to play with 15 kills and Riley Wagoner added 12 as UH was content with using All-America middle Amber Igiede as a decoy for much of the match. Senior Kendra Ham came up huge against her former school with 10 kills, a match-high 18 digs and three of her team’s seven service aces.

“I felt great going out there,” said Alexander, whose 19-kill performance off the bench against LBSU last weekend was a welcome development after she’d fallen out of the regular rotation. “I think that we knew that this tournament is actually a good second chance for us, so we went out there thinking we had to play our hardest or we’re done.”

UH got to Southern California several days before it had to play and held several practices that the team felt were highly productive.

“It started at the practices. They’re coming in, they’re dialed, maybe need just a little reminder here and there,” Ah Mow said. “They just came out strong. We were working on blocking and the middles, making sure they drop left and drop right.”

UH was plus-16 on digs. Setter Kate Lang had 44 assists and 17 digs.

“Kate’s setting perfect balls, Tayli (libero Ikenaga), Caylen and Riley back there setting out-of-system balls, it’s a lot easier when those are good balls up there,” Ham said. “As a senior, every single game could be your last (in the postseason) so you’re just trying to leave everything out on the floor.”

Cal Poly, which split its season matches with UH, had to sweat out a reverse sweep against UC Davis on Wednesday to get to the semifinal against the Wahine. Coach Caroline Walters said the variance in the teams’ preparation time showed, especially in serve and pass.

“I thought Hawaii came out and played impeccably,” Walters said. “I think it shows the importance of that first-round bye of being fresh and having time to prepare. They were serving and passing at a really, really high level. They had a great game plan against us, most impressively in their moments they were serve-receive passing really, really well, they were not setting their best player (Igiede).”

Igiede was still effective with 12 kills and no errors. Ah Mow kept hitters Paula Guersching and Tali Hakas in reserve with Alexander, Ham and Wagoner rolling.

UH hit in the mid-to-high .300s for the first two comfortable sets, but had to sweat out the third. UH rallied from down 7-2 and 20-17, then turned back a set point at 24-23 thanks to a kill by Igiede.

The Wahine ended it on two more successive kills from Alexander and Igiede.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.