In a volleyball performance that scared no one but Hawaii, the 11th-seeded Rainbow Wahine found their form late Friday to pull away from Idaho State in their NCAA tournament first-round match.

The scores were 25-16, 19-25, 25-12, 25-13, before a Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 7,809.

Tonight, Hawaii (25-4) plays 21st-ranked Brigham Young in the second round. The Cougars (23-6) got 27 kills from Alexa Gray, and came back after losing two match points in the fourth set, to defeat Arizona State (19-14) in the opener.

Emily Hartong had 21 kills and hit .514 to lead the Wahine. They needed all the senior All-American could give them for the first hour of a match that didn’t start until after 8 p.m.

Hartong got her jump serve going to break open the first set. Three aces, two ISU errors, a block and a kill later the Wahine had a 12-6 lead. They had six aces in the set, with Ali Longo getting the other three.

The Bengals got to 16 much quicker in the second set, serving three aces of their own and taking advantage of five UH errors to go up 16-10.

Hawaii put two points together just three times, getting outdug 16-8 by the Bengals — and seriously outplayed. The Wahine could not stop ISU’s unorthodox middle attack or Tressa Lyman, who finished with a team-high 13 kills. She was hitting .533 after two sets, but finished nearly 300 points lower.

"We tend to let down when we win a game easy; we’ve done it all year," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "Tonight was typical. We thought it would be easy and Idaho (State) started serving tough and running their middle. They really caused some problems. I’m proud of the team for bouncing back, not getting edgy and staying together."

Hawaii fumbled its way to a 14-10 lead in the third before it finally found its rhythm with Sarah Mendoza serving. She scored seven points, with Hartong getting three of her kills, to put UH up 22-12.

The Bengals’ last lead came at 1-0 in the fourth.

"We didn’t pass as well and it’s hard to do anything when you don’t pass," said setter Lori Mendenhall-Lee, ISU’s only senior. "And I think Hawaii was mad. They turned it up and started playing a little better."

The Wahine’s intermission conversation was extremely basic.

"We just talked about stopping their middle," Hartong said. "They were hurting us in the second set. On our side, we just had to stay together and focus on the pass so we can move our offense around. It was nothing too complex."

Not all was lost for the Bengals, who hadn’t played in the postseason since 1990.

"It was fun to take a game from Hawaii," coach Chad Teichert said. "Not everybody is able to do that. And it was fun to have 8,000-something fans in the stands too."

Hawaii and BYU have played twice in the NCAA tournament, with the Wahine sweeping the Cougars in 1996 and 2003. In between, the teams played the longest match in NCAA history, when UH won the 1998 WAC championship 24-22 in the fifth.

Sixth-seeded USC swept Cal State Northridge on Friday to advance to next weekend’s Los Angeles regional. Top-seeded Texas and seventh-seeded Stanford also advanced to the sweet 16, along with Florida State, which upset fifth-seeded Florida in five.