The Hawaii women’s volleyball needed a stamp from Caylen Alexander to call its season-opening homestand a wrap.

Alexander went off for a career-high 38 kills on a whopping 74 attempts as the Rainbow Wahine outlasted yet another opponent in five sets – this time Texas State in a 25-22, 19-25, 25-21, 21-25, 15-12 decision on Saturday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The junior from Alpharetta, Ga., became the first UH player since Jamie Houston in 2006 to amass 35 or more kills in a match. Her swing total was the most since Emily Hartong in 2012. Fittingly for such a night, she put down the winner on UH’s third match point.

“That was a joke,” coach Robyn Ah Mow said of Alexander’s swing count to Spectrum Sports’ Scott Robbs. “We won yesterday (against Oregon State), but the girls know the play wasn’t that good last night. So they came back and started picking stuff up. Proud for her.”

She hit .338 with 13 digs and was named the Outrigger Invitational Most Outstanding Player after putting down nine kills on 14 swings in the fifth and deciding set.

Alexander was joined on the all-tournament team by setter Kate Lang (56 assists, 17 digs, five kills), libero Tayli Ikenaga (12 digs, 12 assists) and middle Miliana Sylvester (eight kills, two blocks).

UH (6-1) improved to 4-1 in five-setters this season and beat TSU (4-4) for the second time in five days. But it had no time to celebrate its second tournament title of the nonconference season, however, as the Wahine left early Sunday morning for their challenging three-match road trip that begins at UNLV (5-2) on Tuesday.

The Wahine follow at two-time defending national champion and No. 6 Texas (3-3) on Friday and visit No. 18 Baylor (7-2) on Saturday.

“Young team. We’ll see how they travel,” Ah Mow said. “This is going to be a travel-travel instead of at (California). But this is going to be good for us, for the girls to travel before they actually get into conference.”

The next time UH plays at home will be its Big West opener against UC Irvine on Sept. 27.

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