HONOLULU — To get through for 32, the Hawaii women’s volleyball team will have to “dig deep,” in the estimation of coach Robyn Ah Mow.

UH’s quest for a 32nd straight NCAA Tournament appearance reaches the next step starting Friday night against UC Riverside. Down two of their full-rotation pin hitters due to injuries, Ah Mow’s Rainbow Wahine are scrambling for answers before the first serve of the Big West season.

The ninth-year coach is hopeful they’ll scrounge some up.

“That’s the whole point of coaching,” she said this week. “Whatever you have, you do with what you have and you go make wins.”

With an NCAA at-large berth a remote possibility due to its nonconference struggles — the Wahine are coming off a loss to middling Texas State last weekend — UH (4-7) will have to position itself in the top six of 11 teams over the next 20 matches to make the Big West tournament, then win it at Long Beach State for the league’s automatic NCAA berth.

First, Tali Hakas suffered a right shoulder injury on the opening weekend and was announced as done for the season. Last weekend, Stella Adeyemi went down with a left leg injury in the second match of the Stanford Tournament against UCLA. While UH did not announce the severity of the injury, Ah Mow did not sound hopeful she would return anytime soon.

“All the girls need to step up, in everything,” Ah Mow said. “If it’s libs (liberos), your passing, your defense, your serving. If it’s middles, your blocking, your hitting. They all have to step up this week. They have to come together as a team now, losing two heartbeats.”

Hitters Cha’lei Reid and Tyla Reese Mane, middle Bri Gunderson and libero Victoria Leyva will be counted on to bring their own type of juice, she said.

Gunderson, who shifted to the outsides after Adeyemi went down, figures to remain there at least some of the time.

“There were some tears and some people feeling pretty upset,” the 6-foot-3 Eastern Washington transfer said of the immediate reaction to their teammate’s distress in the UCLA match.

But Gunderson said she believes her team has the pieces to remain competitive. The top-five national player in blocks per set last season shrugged off her positional move.

“I don’t think it’s that hard,” she said. “Volleyball’s volleyball, it’s still hitting and blocking; it’s just a higher set. Hopefully it won’t be that big of a deal.”

She credited fellow middle Miliana Sylvester for helping keep the team level-headed after Adeyemi’s serious injury.

“Every team faces adversity,” Sylvester said. “We’re in a really unfortunate situation but to know the situation is not unique to our team. We’ll have to see if every single piece on our team, from Player 1 to the last person on the bench can step up and bring something more to contribute to what we lost.”

Reid, the Kahuku High graduate, leads the team with a 3.58 kills per set average but is hitting only .195.

Houston Christian transfer Ravyn Dash subsequently saw her first serious action at the pins for UH. While she hit .000 last weekend — six kills against six errors — Ah Mow said she was pleasantly surprised by Dash’s talk during the matches.

Cal Poly (9-3) and UC Santa Barbara (8-4) have the strongest resumes heading into conference play. Both are receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches Poll.

Few matches coming up — UC Davis is Saturday night’s opponent — appear to be gimmes. UC Riverside, which recorded the program’s first win over UH at SRC Arena last year, could be an interesting first test. The Highlanders (4-7, 0-1 BWC) beat UNLV at the Rebels’ own tournament last week.

UC Riverside features senior setter Makena Tong, a University Lab School graduate.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.