Sixth-ranked Hawaii was out of its element, but clearly in its volleyball comfort zone last night, blowing by New Mexico State 25-16, 25-14, 25-14 in Las Cruces, N.M.

It was UH’s most one-sided win over the Aggies since NMSU joined the Western Athletic Conference in 2005.

New Mexico State, picked to finish second to the Rainbow Wahine by conference coaches, has lost to the UH in the last four WAC tournament finals. The Aggies have been to five of the last seven NCAA tournaments.

Last night, bad ballhandling offered no hint of any of that past excellence before 2,371 at the Pan American Center.

Hawaii (13-1, 3-0 WAC) was nearly flawless in its first match away from Stan Sheriff Center. If the Aggies hadn’t dug Brittany Hewitt’s spike attempt on the Wahine’s next-to-last point, she would have been perfect.

The sophomore set a UH rally-scoring record by burying 11 of her 12 swings. Her .917 hitting percentage broke Victoria Prince’s mark of .867, set in the 2004 WAC tournament.

"I wasn’t really aware of it," Hewitt said. "Dani (Mafua) was putting the ball in really good places. They (the Aggies) definitely let us go after we had only two (hitting) opportunities in the first game. They probably backed off because Chanteal (Satele) and Kanani (Danielson) started out awesome."

The numbers were mind-boggling. Hawaii middles Emily Hartong and Hewitt were a combined 16-for-18 without an error. Satele was 11-for-19 with two errors and freshman Michelle Waber 5-for-12 with one.

Brittany Hewitt

"Brittany has been way more offensive the past few weeks, really coming on offensively and blocking well," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "Chanteal has been really good and getting better all the time. … She’s doing everything kind of like Aneli (Cubi-Otineru) — hitting the ball hard, getting key digs, serving well and giving us offense out of the back row."

The Aggies (8-8, 2-1) did not block a ball all night, while Hewitt jumped in on five of Hawaii’s seven stuffs. The Wahine outhit the Aggies .383 to .078, outdug them 48-27 and scored in bunches.

With Mafua serving, they got the last seven points of the opening set. There was a run of six with Danielson serving in the second set, then Hewitt served five more. Satele got five in a row in the third, with libero Elizabeth Ka’aihue bringing up a bunch of her 16 digs.

In between, the nationally televised match featured a crawl that showed the batting statistics of the Kansas City Royals’ Kila Ka’aihue, Elizabeth’s brother. There were also clips of the Wahine’s three NCAA titles, with Lee Ann Pestana — Satele’s mother — pushing down the final point in 1983.

It was a surprisingly short and sweet night for Hawaii.

"I expected a tough match," Shoji said. "I thought we’d be challenged, but we weren’t, so I guess I’m happy about that. I’m kinda shocked by the ease of the win. I don’t know if they are not quite as good, or we’re really good. It’s probably somewhere in between."

WAC player of the week Kayleigh Giddens collected 12 of New Mexico State’s 29 kills. Kahuku graduate Amanda Tonga had three.

Hawaii now goes to Louisiana Tech for a match tomorrow. It will be broadcast live on the radio (KKEA, 1420-AM) at 2 p.m.