UC Davis appeared to have all the cards going into Sunday’s series finale at Les Murakami Stadium.

That included the ace.

But Hawaii did just enough at the plate against Robert Garcia — the lefty who was supposed to be the Aggies’ starter on Friday night — and Neil Uskali’s pitching and the UH defense provided the rest.

With a 3-1 victory, the Rainbows kept alive their season-long streak of winning at least one game in every series.

UH is now 22-14 and, with a 4-5 record in the Big West, is keeping contact with the conference leaders. The ’Bows are three games behind Long Beach State and two back of Cal State Fullerton in the loss column.

They haven’t had a winning season in five years. But 12-12 marks in the conference the past two years provided some hope that the Rainbows could finally be on the upswing.

It’s still an unknown if they are good enough to compete with the best of the Big West. That will be learned next month, when they meet head-to-head.

If this weekend against a mid-level league foe showed anything, it is that Hawaii is still inconsistent and at times its own enemy. On the bright side, Sunday reinforced that UH has a tendency to battle back.

The Rainbows have bounced back to avoid long losing streaks. The worst slump has been three losses in a row (twice).

“It’s a tough group of guys,” shortstop Jordan LaFave said. “No one’s holding anything back. And everybody’s got each other’s back.”

As for Saturday’s losses that weren’t even close (11-4 and 9-3): “We let those games slip away,” LaFave said. “We don’t expect to see that again.”

Hawaii made uncharacteristic mistakes on defense and were listless at the plate and on the mound.

“They don’t need an excuse,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said when asked if a wet field caused the problems of Saturday. “Miscommunication in the outfield, that’s where it turned. We picked a bad day to be bad. Couldn’t play worse. And give (Davis) credit, they played out of their skulls. We just didn’t play well. And we (pitched) too many cookies, up in the zone.”

The Aggies and ’Bows played two Saturday because Friday’s scheduled series-opener was rained out. UC Davis coach Matt Vaughn then decided to move Garcia’s start to Sunday.

“We knew we had to come back today and show what we can really do,” Uskali said.

He out-dueled Garcia, going 81⁄3 innings, allowing just five hits and no walks.

“Starting with the slider and getting ahead with offspeed pitches for strikes,” was the key, he said.

So was some spectacular defense.

Thrillin’ Dylan Vchulek made a stellar diving catch in the left-center gap to end the second inning. That was a couple of batters after third baseman Josh Rojas made a Brooks Robinson-Nolan Arenado-level stop down the third-base line; he didn’t have time for a throw, but it kept a runner at second from advancing and probably prevented a run-scoring double.

Rojas sparkled again when he did make a throw on a high bouncer to end the seventh.

But the best came at the end and helped Dylan Thomas register his fifth save.

What looked like a routine bounding ball up the middle to LaFave took a sudden high hop right in front of him. LaFave had the reflexes to make the play, touch second and throw to first in time for a game-ending double play.

“That was a really tough play,” Trapasso said. “I don’t know if a lot of people know how tough a play that was.”

Said LaFave: “I was pretty lucky it found the glove. I’m known for my defense, that’s why I’m here.”

Hawaii won without an extra-base hit; Alex Fitchett’s alert base running allowed him to return safely to second on a hot grounder back to the mound for a fielder’s choice and was key to a decisive two-run small-ball rally in the fourth inning.

It also included Marcus Doi’s sacrifice bunt, LaFave’s sacrifice fly and Vchulek’s RBI infield single.

As much as the Rainbows did wrong on Saturday, they did right and all the little things added up to a win.

It’s too bad for them the doubleheader wasn’t on Sunday.