It was quite the sight in Robertson Gym last night. Minutes after Hawaii swept UC Santa Barbara to keep its hopes for a home playoff match alive, the Warriors and supporters were huddled around a computer, watching the live updates from another match some 250 miles away.

Hawaii's 33-31, 30-28, 30-26 win over host UCSB would be rendered meaningless if Pepperdine pulled out a win at UC San Diego. A win by the Waves would give them the fourth seed in next week's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament and push the Warriors into fifth for a quarterfinal at Pepperdine.

If the Waves lost, Pepperdine would be tied with Hawaii for fourth and, losing the tiebreaker, would have to travel to the Stan Sheriff Center for this Saturday's match.

Hawaii head coach Charlie Wade and associate coach Dan Fisher stood off on the side, figuring the rest of the Warriors contingent would let them know the outcome. Wade's first response? He was going to send UCSD coach Kevin Ring a congratulatory text message, thanking the Tritons for coming back to defeat the Waves in five.

“;I'm going to vote Ring coach of the year,”; Wade said, his team making the playoffs in his first season. “;What does it mean? From Day 1, we said we wanted to prove that we had closed the gap on the rest of the league. The goal was to get into the playoffs and, if we got in the playoffs, we wanted to host.

“;If you want to use the analogy to the NCAA basketball tournament, you finish in the top four in this league is like getting the No. 1 seed in a regional. We feel so fortunate that we're going to be able to share this with our fans, who helped us win some close games.

“;It hasn't sunk in ... but here we go.”;

The Warriors rode the arm of freshman opposite Jonas Umlauft into the playoffs for the first time since 2007. Umlauft finished with a match-high 22 kills as Hawaii avenged a sweep by UCSB on Friday.

It was the fourth time this season that the Warriors had dropped the first match of a series only to come back and win the second night.

“;We obviously benefit from watching ourselves against an opponent,”; Wade said.

Hawaii senior libero Ric Cervantes, a Santa Barbara native, atoned for his off night Friday with 14 of the team's 45 digs.

Both Umlauft and junior hitter Joshua Walker (14 kills) came up big at the end of Set 1 as Hawaii rallied from being down 28-25 to hold off three set points and tie at 29. It was tied twice more before two Gaucho hitting errors gave the Warriors the win.

Hawaii controlled Set 2, leading by as many as nine (20-11) before UCSB responded. The Gauchos had to beat the Warriors for a second time if they had any chance of edging UC Irvine for the final playoff spot.

Down 29-25, UCSB held off three set points in closing to 29-28. Umlauft answered with a kill to give Hawaii the 2-0 lead.

The Warriors turned the tight Set 3 their way when breaking a 22-22 tie with kills by Umlauft and Walker, and on one of seven blocks by senior middle Steven Grgas. A Gaucho hitting error ended it after 1 hour and 55 minutes, and set off the Warriors' waiting game. As expected, it was a wild final night in the MPSF, with the league title on the line as well as seeds 1 through 6. Host Brigham Young needed only to beat Cal State Northridge to earn the No. 1 seed, but the Matadors came back to win in five.

BYU then had to wait on the outcome of the Stanford-UC Irvine match. If the Cardinal lost, the Cougars would take the top seed by virtue of a tiebreaker. Stanford won in five, dropping BYU to No. 2, with Cal State Northridge up to No. 3.

Ticket information

Tickets for Saturday's match go on sale tomorrow at 8 a.m. at the Sheriff Center box office, through HawaiiAthletics.com and at 944-BOWS. Ticket prices range from $5 to $12.