LONG BEACH — The back-to-back men’s volleyball matches between No. 1 Hawaii and No. 2 Long Beach State lived up to the hype.

For the second night in a row, the two best teams in the country needed five sets to determine a winner. And for the second night in a row, it was Long Beach State which emerged with a 3-2 win.

The 49ers (25-1, 10-0) won by scores of 25-16, 18-25, 13-25, 25-23 and 15-10, wrapping up the regular-season Big West Conference title and the No. 1 seed in next week’s conference tournament in the process. With two wins over Hawaii, Long Beach State is virtually assured to become the nation’s new No. 1 team in next week’s poll.

Long Beach State needed to come back from a one-set deficit for the second straight night to beat the Rainbow Warriors, and the charge was led by senior T.J. DeFalco. He finished with a match-high 21 kills and had three key blocks in the pivotal fifth set. Ethan Siegfried added 16 kills and 10 digs for the 49ers.

“We definitely enjoy these type of moments and we definitely take that into the postseason, that every single match is going to feel like these last two matches,” libero Jordan Molina said. “It’s going to make us prepared for what we face next time.”

Being the final home game of the regular season, Saturday was senior night for Long Beach State.

The six-player senior class of Nick Amado, DeFalco, Kyle Ensing, Jordan Molina, Louis Richard and Josh Tuaniga was honored in a ceremony after the match. Tuaniga’s brother, Jake, sang the national anthem beforehand for a crowd of 4,674, a new Walter Pyramid regular-season record for men’s volleyball.

“You don’t get very many opportunities to look back on the years you’ve been here, so it was cool just to see some of the things we did in the past,” said Tuaniga, who was part of a class that featured two national players of the year and won the national championship last season. “This is something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.”

The emotions didn’t distract Long Beach State heading into the match. If anything, they seemed to give LBSU an extra degree of focus. Mild accomplishments like a 13-11 lead were celebrated fiercely by the always-wired Amado and his teammates.

A DeFalco block put the finishing touch on the first set for Long Beach State, which posted a .500 hitting percentage in the frame.

But Hawaii matched Long Beach State’s energy in the second set. The two teams engaged in several long rallies, but the 49ers wound up on the wrong side of them as Hawaii went on a 5-0 run to build a lead.

When a Patrick Gasman kill gave Hawaii at 15-9 lead, libero Gage Worsley flexed to the sizable Hawaii contingent in the crowd as the Rainbow Warriors were well on their way to tying the match at 1-1.

The bottom fell out for Long Beach State in the third set. A service error from Siegfried was a less than ideal start for the 49ers, especially followed by two aces from Hawaii’s Joe Worsley put Long Beach State in an early hole it couldn’t dig out of.

Long Beach state trailed by as many 13 in the set and saw the Rainbow Warriors post a .625 hitting percentage and add three aces.

Long Beach State built a 24-20 lead in the fourth set largely behind DeFalco and his five kills and two aces. But Hawaii cut the lead to 24-23, prompting a Long Beach State timeout.

“We had more sets to play,” DeFalco said of bouncing back from the 2-1 deficit. “The game wasn’t over.”

The 49ers came out of the break and Ensing delivered a thundering kill to send the match to a fifth and decisive set.