With its back against the wall almost till the end against Iolani last night, Kamehameha rallied to force tomorrow's Interscholastic League of Honolulu girls volleyball championship match between the same teams.

First serve is set for 4:30 p.m. at Iolani Gym.

Iolani (16-1) could have clinched the title last night, but the Warriors (16-1) forced a playoff with a thrilling 25-23, 25-27, 25-23 home victory before a vocal crowd of about 600 at Kekuhaupio Fieldhouse.

Kamehameha trailed 20-16 in the third game, but rallied to tie it at 21 and then scored the final two points on a kill by Bekah Torres and a Raiders hitting error.

"I never had a doubt we could come back," Torres said. "We've been down before, but we just kept pushing and kept pushing until we finally won."

It took every ounce of energy to fight off Iolani as the Warriors avenged their only ILH loss by repeatedly showing an ability to persevere.

They spotted the Raiders a 4-0 lead to start the match before tying it 8-8 and scoring the final two points on an Iolani error and Kanani Herring's kill. The Raiders then won the second game, but only after Kamehameha fought off game point twice.

In game 3, Iolani broke a 15-15 tie and took a 20-16 lead helped by two net violations and an error by the Warriors.

"We were just getting ahead of ourselves," Torres said of that third-game slip. "We just had to stop doing that and cut down on our errors."

Alexis Robins had two kills to spark a 5-1 run to tie the score, then the teams traded points until Torres put Kamehameha ahead for good.

"I had faith in the girls that we could control our side of the net," Warriors coach Chris Blake said. "We really push the girls hard in practice and put them through a lot of adversity, but it pays off in a match like this.

"Iolani is a great team, so for our girls to come back like that, they did a great job of executing down the stretch. I thought our fans made a big difference, too, and I want to thank them for stepping up when we needed them."

Herring led Kamehameha with 11 kills and five blocks and Torres added six kills.

Lauren Minkel had 10 kills and Megan Burton added seven kills and six blocks for the Raiders, who made 11 serving errors.

"We were not focused today," Iolani coach Luis Ramirez said. "We need to go back and take care of all those mistakes, starting with the serves. We just made far too many errors."

Reach Wes Nakama at wnakama@honoluluadvertiser.com.