On a night when the quantity of its fight far overwhelmed the quality of its volleyball talent, and Jamie Houston rose above everyone, 10th-ranked Hawai'i held off its former assistant and his scrappy new players at Pacific in the Chevron Rainbow Wahine Invitational.

The 'Bows (6-2) won their fifth consecutive match despite an intestinal flu that struck about half the players. They outscored the Tigers at the tail end of each set in a 25-21, 25-22, 25-23 win last night. It was UOP's seventh straight loss to open the season, four against ranked teams.

Houston, who has suffered through a Jekyll and Hyde existence this early season, was at her high-flying best last night. With Hawai'i's ballhandling in bad shape, leading to an offense void of imagination, she buried 16 kills — a third of the UH total — and six stuffs. It spoiled what would have been a memorable head coaching debut here for former assistant Charlie Wade.

"We weren't clicking as a team tonight and we had to play through it," Houston said with a shrug. "We're going to have nights like this. We have to learn to play through it."

Hawai'i's four seniors gave Wade a lei before the match. He gave Houston a huge compliment after.

"Jamie was so good we just didn't have an answer," said Wade, who coached or recruited 10 of the UH players before leaving for UOP in 2006. "There were so many times we'd serve well enough to break them down, they'd have to go high and outside and she'd just go up and over. It looked pretty much like the old Kim (Willoughby) and Lily (Kahumoku) Show: Bad pass, crummy set and so what? Thunk."

That's precisely what most of Houston's kills sounded like. Before a crowd of 4,495 at Stan Sheriff Center, she kept the Rainbow Wahine in the match and helped them finish the tenacious Tigers off.

"I knew it was going to be difficult tonight because emotionally it's hard for our team to get up," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "They were 0-6. They didn't look good against Washington. I think Washington is in the back of our minds. It was a difficult task to be emotionally high tonight and we weren't. But we played through it."

It sets up one match for the title tonight, against ninth-ranked Washington. The Huskies, who swept Saint Mary's last night, blew UOP away Thursday, making just four hitting errors all night. The Rainbow Wahine are 1-8 against top-10 opponents the past two-plus seasons.

Pacific, which was without one of its best players, did its best to ruin the showdown for 1 hour and 41 minutes. The Tigers (0-7) got 31 kills from outside hitters Alexa Anderson (16) and Kara Uhi (15), who added 14 digs. But they could never consistently block the 'Bows, particularly Houston.

Kanani Herring was next for UH with nine kills, to go with 12 digs. It was a mediocre night for the freshman who has been so spectacular that one statistic stood out last night — she made the first service reception error of her career, on her 99th reception attempt.

The only difference between the two teams in the first set was Houston, who buried six kills in 11 swings. The rest of the 'Bows had just seven kills, and still they carved out an 18-12 advantage before UOP went on a 6-1 surge to get within one. The Rainbows scored six of the last nine.

The Tigers were not going anywhere. They slugged their way to 12 ties in the second set, erasing a four-point deficit in the process. While Hawai'i's passing continued to crumble, UOP pulled ahead, 21-20.

Houston's ninth kill tied it for the last time. Pacific committed two violations and a hitting error to put the 'Bows at set point, and Houston and Nickie Thomas stuffed it, sending Mallori Gibson's spike back into her head.

"Our girls worked through it, which is another good sign about our team," Shoji said. "Everybody stayed together. We just couldn't get out of our little funk."

The final set was tied 19 times, the last at 23. Amber Kaufman's kill gave UH match point and Stephanie Ferrell, who came in when Aneli Cubi-Otineru was too sick to go on, got it with her fifth kill in eight swings.

In the early match, Washington scored the last six points of the first set to overtake Saint Mary's and went on to a 25-20, 25-17, 25-16 victory. It was only the second time this season an opponent has scored 20 points against the Huskies (7-0, 2-0 Invitational).

The Gaels (6-2, 0-2) got 14 kills from Megan York. 'Iolani graduates Megan Burton and Kapua Kamana'o each had three blocks. Jill Collymore had a match-high 16 kills for UW and Kalani graduate Tamari Miyashiro 14 digs.

QUICK SETS

Middle Tennessee, the team that ended Hawai'i's season short of the NCAA regionals last year, has won its first seven matches and is ranked 13th.