The Hawaii women’s volleyball team remains unpredictable on a week-to-week basis. So far this week, the best version of the Rainbow Wahine has appeared.

UH, which got swept by UC Santa Barbara at the Thunderdome two weeks ago, returned the favor on the Gauchos at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday night in a 25-14, 25-21, 25-17 laugher in 98 minutes.

It sets up an intriguing battle with second place co-habitant Cal Poly on Saturday night as the Rainbow Wahine (14-7, 8-3 Big West) and Mustangs drew within a game of leader UC Davis (9-2 BWC), which fell at UC San Diego just before the ‘Bows and Gauchos fired off first serve.

UH notched an impressive road sweep over Cal Poly on Oct. 18, then turned around and lost decisively at UCSB the next night on the Central Coast of California.

In a hot-and-cold trend that has endured all season, UH was sluggish in a five-set win over Cal State Northridge on Sunday, but appeared as focused as ever on Thursday. It snapped a three-game losing streak to UCSB (10-14, 6-6) in the series.

“We just gotta come in dialed and focused just like this,” UH coach Robyn Ah Mow told Spectrum Sports after the speedy win. “Whoever shows up is gonna win, so we gotta come with the same focus tomorrow.”

Setter Kate Lang tied her career high of six kills and guided her team to a .364 hitting night. She put up 40 assists and served two aces.

Hitter Caylen Alexander supplied 19 kills and 13 digs. The middles came to play on offense, as Jacyn Bamis had 11 kills and Miliana Sylvester had seven kills without an error.

UH, which has been error-prone all season, minimized its mistakes in Set 1 (three errors) and Set 3 (four) as the Gauchos took only the most token of leads in those frames.

“Everything is clicking, ahh, except for our middle blockers on their blocking,” Ah Mow said. “But I think overall the energy and the fight they came out with today (was good).”

UH plans to honor Ah Mow and fellow former Wahine Heather Bown at Saturday’s match. The two were inaugurated in the USA Volleyball Hall of Fame together.

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