No. 100 was nice. No. 101 was historic.

When third-seeded Hawaii won both matches on Friday’s opening day of the NCAA beach volleyball national championship tournament, the Rainbow Wahine had coach Jeff Hall hitting the century mark plus one in career victories. But Friday’s second victory in Gulf Shores, Ala., was the one for the books. The 3-2 nail-biter over No. 2-seeded Pepperdine lifted Hawaii to its first postseason win over the Waves and into today’s championship semifinal.

Hawaii (37-3) takes a nation-best 32-match winning streak into today’s contest with No. 4 seed Florida State. The Seminoles (32-6) sent two-time defending national champion USC into the losers bracket with a 3-1 win over the Women of Troy, then sent top-seeded UCLA there as well with a 3-1 victory over the Bruins.

There’s avenge and revenge on both sides of the net today. Florida State is the last team to defeat Hawaii, that coming 4-1 in the East Meets West Challenge on March 10 at Huntington Beach, Calif. In last year’s NCAA tournament, the SandBows ended the Seminoles’ season with a 3-2 win.

Last season’s contest with FSU came down to Flight 5, where junior Hannah Zalopany and freshman Amy Ozee pulled out a marathon 27-25 Set 3 win. On Friday, the dual with the Waves also came down to Flight 5, where Zalopany was paired with another freshman, Paige Dreeuws.

With the third set tied 13-13, Zalopany’s kill set up match point, and Pepperdine’s Nikki Lyons hit long to end it 21-19, 18-21, 15-13.

“At 13-13, I’m thinking about our side, that it’s a game to 2 (points),” Zalopany said in a telephone call. “I didn’t think about last year. It was, let’s keep it simple, take care of our side and execute.

“I love the energy when it comes down to the final points like that. Paige played phenomenal as a true freshman, was emotionally stable and showed her maturity. She was a rock out there.”

For the first time in three NCAA appearances, the SandBows will get to sleep in, with just one match, that the last of this afternoon. Having that time to recover is key, physically, emotionally and mentally, Zalopany said.

“It’s a lot of time to recover, which is good,” she said after she and Dreeuws improved to 26-6 with their 11th straight win. “We’re looking for a little bit of avenging, but it’s really a clean slate right now. Every team is capable of winning (the title) right now. We just need to show up like we showed up today, be patient, be confident and kind of let everything unfold.”

Hawaii easily won its opener against seventh-seeded South Carolina, having the dual end 3-0 with Zalopany and Dreeuws earning the clinching point. Sweeping the Gamecocks would foreshadow what happened during Hawaii’s break between matches.

The SandBows swept the top Big West awards, with Emily Maglio and Ka’iwi Schucht named pairs team of the year, Lea Monkhouse freshman of the year and Hall coach of the year. It is the third consecutive year that Hawaii won the pairs and freshman awards, and the second time in three seasons that Hall was honored.

This is the second time Maglio has been part of the pairs award. In 2016, she teamed with Katie Spieler for the honor. Monkhouse’s partner, Morgan Martin, was freshman of the year last year, and Maglio earned it in 2016.

Maglio-Schucht and Monkhouse-Martin also were named to the six-pairs first team. Also honored were Laurel Weaver-Carly Kan (second team) and Ozee-Ari Homayun (honorable mention).

“I’m grateful and humble, but this really is about the kids — they earned it for me,” Hall said. “We’re focused on the goal we’ve had all season, bringing home the national title.

“As nervous as I was (at 13-13), I said, ‘Zap’s got this.’ It was really dramatic, one of those moments you live for and, when you win, it’s the greatest.”

Hall said there were a few surprises on Friday, one being that his Flight 4 pair of Homayun-Ozee didn’t pull out the win over Alexis Filippone-Skylar Caputo. The 21-15, 19-21, 15-12 loss snapped the duo’s 25-match winning streak, a program record they now share with Maglio-Schucht.

The second was today’s elimination bracket, where the Pepperdine-USC winner faces the UCLA-LSU winner. Three of those teams are ranked in the top 5 — No. 1 UCLA, No. 2 Pepperdine and No. 5 USC — and no more than one of them will be around Sunday.

“It’s pretty crazy that only one of the three L.A. schools, one of the crown jewels of the sport, will be left,” Hall said. “It will make for great television.

“For us, there’s motivation after losing to FSU. But they have double motivation since we’ve eliminated them in some big tournaments (2015 AVCA championships and 2017 NCAA championships). They’re coming for us. They played an unbelievable match against the No. 1 team in UCLA. That gives us motivation.”