The fight was there. Late again, but it was there.

It was the successful finish that once again eluded Hawaii.

A night after a five-set marathon win at UC Santa Barbara, there was no hana hou for the Rainbow Wahine 100 miles up the coast in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Instead No. 13 Cal Poly got 29 kills from junior hitter Torrey Van Winden and the benefit of several questionable calls, including the match-ender, holding off Hawaii 25-19, 25-18, 21-25, 27-25 in Saturday’s Big West volleyball match. A sold-out crowd of 3,032 at Mott Gym saw the Mustangs (16-1, 6-0) take over sole possession of first place in the conference by defeating the Wahine (9-6, 5-1) for a third straight meeting in 1 hour and 55 minutes.

Cal Poly extended its winning streaks to 23 matches in conference play, 17 at home and 15 this season.

“They fought hard at the end, but they’ve got to do that from the start,” Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow-Santos said about her team in a post-match phone call. “I liked the fight at the end, in the third and the fourth sets, but if they just do their jobs from the beginning …

“I tell them, ‘You’re right there with them. Clean up the errors and you’re right there.’ Hopefully it wakes them up. I don’t like losing, but some of it you can’t do anything about.”

One of the things was the officiating, which was apparently as questionable as when Hawaii lost at Cal Poly last season. Saturday’s match ended on an illegal back-row attack called on junior Norene Iosia when she tried to set a ball that appeared to still be on Hawaii’s side of the net but was ruled otherwise.

“In my mind … and I’m biased … I thought it was a settable ball and they reached over,” Iosia said of what is known as a 50-50 ball. “If we started that fight earlier, we wouldn’t be in that situation.

“As the coaches are saying to us, we know we can fight when it comes to the fourth and fifth. It was a matter of when we were we going to pull out our great volleyball. We didn’t do it in the first or second (sets).”

Iosia, used as a setter and a hitter, finished with her third triple-double (11 kills, 24 assists, 21 digs).

Senior McKenna Granato had her seventh double-double with a team-high 14 kills and 13 digs, and senior setter Faith Ma’afala added 31 assists and 12 digs for her sixth double-double. Senior middle Sarah Liva added a career-high 12 kills and senior libero Tita Akiu had 14 digs.

Torrey Van Winden added 14 digs, and her sister, senior hitter Adlee, had 10 kills and 13 digs. Libero Katherine Brouker finished with a match-high 26 digs.

Down 2-0, the Wahine finally got a handle on Torrey Van Winden, who had 14 kills with one error in the first two sets. She opened Set 3 with four errors and Hawaii took a 7-4 lead.

The Wahine pulled away at 19-16 and had set point at 24-19. They needed three tries to get it done, with Iosia finally ending it.

The Mustangs led for most of Set 4, including 21-16 and 24-22. Hawaii held off two match points and earned set point at 25-24 on Granato’s final kill.

Cal Poly answered with two kills by Meredith Phillips for a third shot at ending it. It ended anticlimactically on the referee’s call on Iosia.

“It is what it is,” Ah Mow-Santos said. “It was the same ref as last time. This was a big match and (the Big West) should send their best.

“We still got another chance.”

Hawaii will host Cal Poly on Oct. 26. Before then, the Wahine are home against Long Beach State on Friday and Cal State Northridge on Sunday.