Regional-bound

In a volleyball performance both tenacious and familiar, third-ranked Hawaii found its way over, under and through towering Colorado State on Friday to reach its own regional.

The Rainbow Wahine, seeded 10th in the NCAA tournament, held off the Rams 22-25, 25-22, 25-16, 25-18 behind All-American Kanani Danielson and her hard-working teammates.

A Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 7,861 roared and willed the Wahine (31-1) to their 26th straight victory, and into next week’s Honolulu Regional.

"The fans are awesome, awesome," said UH coach Dave Shoji, who has guided his team to 16 regionals the past 19 years. "You can’t say enough. They came last night and tonight to support us. Everybody here is ohana to us. You see all the green shirts. What can I say? It’s the greatest atmosphere in college volleyball."

It will be back. Friday, Hawaii will play the winner of tonight’s match between seventh-seeded USC and Tulsa. In the other regional semifinal here, 14th-seeded Pepperdine plays Kansas State, which upset second-seeded Nebraska in Lincoln. The Cornhuskers ended their season by losing two of their last three.

Colorado State heads home from its 17th consecutive NCAA tournament with a 24-6 record, coming up short of the regionals for the 12th time and short against Hawaii for the eighth time in eight meetings.

"Hawaii is a great volleyball team," CSU coach Tom Hilbert said. "We started this match doing the things we do well. We put some pressure on them, blocked well. The difference from the first two sets to the last two is we were a little more aggressive offensively, tempo-wise and distribution, than the last two.

"Their serving pressure was great. They got to us early, we got it together and passed a little better, but then they got to us again late in the match."

Danielson, after the initial shock of seeing a sea of 6-foot-4 blockers, got to the Rams all night. She had 22 kills and 20 digs, her 20th double-double of a wondrous senior season. Help came from everywhere.

First-year setter Mita Uiato spread the offense out just enough to slow the country’s second-best blocking team. Megan Plourde, the country’s best blocker, was in on seven of CSU’s 10 stuffs, but the much smaller Wahine also had 10.

They gave Katelyn Steffan, CSU’s only senior and Mountain West Player of the Year, a nightmarish final match. After starting 4-for-7, Steffan had just six kills and four errors the last 31⁄2 sets.

Hawaii also terrorized Steffan and Dana Cranston with their serves, taking target practice at them. UH blasted 10 aces and stifled the Colorado State offense into .149 hitting, with Cranston’s 14 kills and .324 percentage the only bright spot.

"They were doing what we knew they’d do," Shoji said. "They put a lot of pressure on you because their outside hitters can hit and bang even when they get out of system. We were serving pretty tough and they could still score.

"For us, normally when we’re serving tough a team has to go one way and we can do a good job stopping them. But we did break them down. I think that was the reason we won. We broke down their passing game and were able to form the block. I think that was the difference in the match."

But, before balls were falling without CSU players diving after them and Uiato had the Wahine in a wonderful rhythm, the match was excruciatingly close.

It began with bursts of points. Hawaii scored four in a row, with Jane Croson crushing two aces and CSU mangling another. The Rams rallied back, scoring six straight behind three kills from Steffan.

The Wahine pulled even — seven times — and pulled ahead 21-19. Colorado State closed in as Hawaii, with the exception of Chanteal Satele and Danielson, struggled to put the ball down.

Finally, the Rams scored six of the last seven to silence the crowd.

Those surges slowed in an intense second set that ended with players on their knees after nearly 30 minutes of breathless rallies.The 11th and last tie came at 17.

This time Hawaii scored four points on Brittany Hewitt’s serve, the last two coming on aces before and after a CSU timeout.

The Wahine extended their lead to 23-19 on Danielson’s 10th kill, which gave her the double-double. The Rams scored the next two, but after the longest of all those long rallies, Croson finally forced her fifth kill of the set to the floor and Satele finished it off.

At that stage, Satele was the only Wahine hitting over .215. CSU had three hitters over .300, was out-blocking UH 6-2, but was somehow even.

"We knew we could take care of business together," Danielson said. "We didn’t need anybody to step up. We depended on each other to come up with digs and kills and Mita was setting a beautiful offense."

Hawaii blew to a 14-6 advantage 10 minutes into the third. When the Rams took their last timeout at that point, they had seven hitting errors — to Hawaii’s six kills.

They would finish with seven kills and nine errors, going down in 20 minutes to Hewitt’s third ace, which they watched hit the floor.

Colorado State, just like it did Thursday in eliminating 13th-ranked Oregon, came back sure and fast. It raced ahead 10-6 before Hawaii caught its breath and, ultimately, the Rams in the fourth. UH’s 5-0 run put it ahead and it never trailed again, scoring 10 of the final 13 points.

Along with Nebraska, 14th-seeded Tennessee was eliminated Friday, falling to Ohio State in Knoxville. Texas A&M, seeded 16th, also lost at home, to Kentucky.