Hawaii’s focus on the middle during a bye week paid off in a four-set victory over UC Santa Barbara in the top-ranked Rainbow Warriors’ Big West opener on Thursday.

UH senior middle blocker Patrick Gasman set career highs with 14 kills and 10 blocks and the Warriors (5-0, 1-0 Big West) dropped the first set, then pulled away late in the next three in a 16-25, 25-20, 25-20, 25-20 victory over the Gauchos (4-1, 0-1) at Robertson Gym in Santa Barbara, Calif.

UH senior Rado Parapunov led the Warriors with 16 kills while hitting .419 and finished with seven blocks and 11 digs.

Led by the 6-foot-10 Gasman and the 6-9 Parapunov, the Warriors outblocked UCSB 14-6 and recovered from a slow start to hit .322 as a team.

“We’ve made that adjustment where we put them next to each other and that’s quite a formidable duo to get past and (that) really was triggered by our serving,” UH coach Charlie Wade said. “(The Gauchos) were really in system a lot early and able to do whatever they wanted. And then as the match went on we got them out of system enough for the block to really take over.”

The Warriors and Gauchos meet again today at 2 p.m. in another Big West match and close the series on Saturday with a nonconference meeting.

Coming off a four-match sweep of a season-opening trip, Wade noted the lack of sets going to the middle and made it an emphasis in practices leading into this week’s series.

Along with Gasman’s production in hitting .571, freshman middle blocker Guilherme Voss finished with seven kills in nine attempts with no errors (.778).

“Coming off the last road trip we knew that most nights we’re going to have an advantage and not only did we not set the first ball enough that last road trip, we didn’t set the ball in transition almost at all,” Wade said. “So that’s something that we worked on all week … running the middle when we have an opportunity to. And tonight we had lots of opportunities.”

UCSB opposite Randy DeWeese, the reigning Big West and AVCA national player of the week, put down a match-high 21 kills in 47 swings. Roy McFarland added 15 kills, seven coming in the first set. Punahou graduate Ryan Wilcox had seven kills and eight digs.

McFarland sparked the Gauchos early, pounding five kills from the left side as UCSB opened up a 15-9 lead to take control of the opening set. He put down another on set point to end UH’s run of 12 consecutive sets won.

“There was nothing that was surprising us, we just didn’t play to the best of our abilities,” Wade said. “So at that point really you just want to kind of stay calm and make sure that we’re executing the scouting report. And as that happened more we went on more scoring runs.”

After hitting .103 (nine kills, six errors in 29 attempts) in the first set to UCSB’s .545, the Warriors hit .395 over the next three in winning their seventh straight in the series with UCSB while ending the Gauchos’ 12-match winning streak dating back to last season.

UH setter Jakob Thelle finished with 38 assists and seven digs while putting down four kills in seven swings and UH posted a season-high 44 digs.

Gasman and Parapunov combined on a block to end the second set and Gasman capped the third with his 10th kill of the afternoon. With UH protecting a 20-19 lead in the fourth, Gasman stuffed an attempt by Brandon Hicks to put down a kill to give the Warriors a three-point cushion. After a kill by Thelle, a Gasman-Parapunov block gave UH match point and Colton Cowell closed the match with his seventh kill.

“(Gasman’s) an absolute beast,” Cowell said. “He is the best middle of the country. There’s no doubt about that. And I think that he’s really stepping into just a leadership role where we know exactly what we’re gonna get out of him every single night. He’s consistently bringing the fire, bringing the energy, and he just makes these plays that you don’t see very often.”