A planned night of celebration ended in frustration for the Hawaii men’s volleyball team.

Two nights after being swept, Loyola Chicago rallied from a 12-7 deficit in the fifth set to win Friday’s rematch — 18-25, 25-22, 18-25, 25-23, 15-13 — in SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

The outcome ruined the Rainbow Warriors’ post-match ceremony in which they received their commemorative rings for winning the 2023 Big West championship.

Despite some of their best efforts — opposite Alaka‘i Todd was errorless in 22 swings while logging 12 kills; Spyros Chakas had 22 kills while hitting .500 — the third-ranked Warriors could not hold off the No. 10 Ramblers’ late surge.

“Amazing, exhilarating,” said Loyola’s 6-9 opposite Parker Van Buren, who buried 20 kills (against four errors) in 39 arm-numbing swings. “We’ve been down in the fifth set before, and we’ve come back and won ’em. We won last year. We knew no matter how far we were down, we’re always in it. We’re never out of it. We came together.”

In the fifth set, UH coach Charlie Wade tweaked the rotation, with outside hitter Keoni Thiim assigned the first serve.

“It’s rolling the dice at that point,” Wade said of using Thiim in place of outside hitter Chaz Galloway. “I think Chaz was getting gassed a little bit. And Keoni’s been such a spark for us at a time. So you give him a shot and spin it and put him out there.”

Thiim’s jump serve to open the fifth did not clear the net.

But UH middle blocker Kurt Nusterer tied it with a slam and then had two serves that resulted in Chakas kills for a 3-1 lead.

Later, Nusterer and the 6-foot Thiim collaborated on a block to expand the Warriors’ lead to 12-7.

Loyola’s Jake Read tooled a double block to cut the deficit to 12-8. Loyola coach John Hawks then summoned freshman Lukas Anderson to the service line.

“He’s got the heart of a champion,” Hawks said. “In the moment like that, he’s built for stuff like that. It was a learning moment. If he failed, he would have learned. But I trust him. I trust all these guys to go in big moments like that.”

The Ramblers scored four points in a row on Anderson’s sizzling serves, including an ace off Thiim to tie it at 12.

“Lukas came in and had some huge serves,” Van Buren said. “The feeling of having a freshman come in and make those big plays and big serves in a big moment was amazing.”

Todd helped the Warriors regain the lead with his swing off a D set from the back right.

But Thiim’s service error tied it at 13. Read’s kill set up aloha ball. The Ramblers finished off a split of the season-opening series when Van Buren and Jimmy Meinhart blocked Chakas.

“Previously, I was sticking to the defensive reads my coach gave me,” Van Buren said of associate head coach Ali‘i Keohohou. “On this last one, he said, ‘Screw the read, just go block the ball.’ And that’s what happened. And the game ended. Shoutout to Coach Ali‘i for that advice.”

The conclusion was the polar opposite of the Warriors’ dominant first set, in which they had 14 kills in 21 errorless swings, scoring natural points on 38% of their serves.

But in self-destructive second set, the Warriors committed 15 errors, including eight on serves.

“The first set was pretty flawless,” Wade said, “and then we got a bit neurotic from the service line. We made 15 errors in the second set. We haven’t made 15 errors in a single set … not in this decade or maybe a lot longer than that.”

In all, the Warriors committed 27 service errors — 22 more than their opener on Wednesday. The Ramblers had 14 service errors on both Wednesday and Friday.

Wade said a quality team like that can win another set “on their own. And anytime you’re in the fifth, it’s a coin flip.”

Wade added: “There was a lot of good stuff that happened. Losing sucks, but we saw some great individual performances.”