LONG BEACH, Calif. — In the first round of the NCAA Volleyball Championship last night, 12th-ranked Hawai'i made the sixth-best team in the country's premier conference look suspiciously like the sixth-best team in the less-than-premier Western Athletic Conference.

The Rainbow Wahine (27-5) put on their finest 2006 performance to date, obliterating the Ducks, 30-17, 30-17, 30-18, at The Walter Pyramid.

The 'Bows will go for their 14th consecutive win, and a place in next weekend's Honolulu Regional, tonight against Long Beach State (26-5). The 49ers upset 24th-ranked Pepperdine, 30-22, 30-27, 25-30, 30-26 in the other subregional semifinal.

UH has never beaten Long Beach State at The Pyramid. The 49ers are 28-1 in NCAA matches at home, and ended Hawai'i's season from 1989 to '93 in this tournament. The 'Bows won the teams' last postseason meeting six years ago in Honolulu.

Hawai'i, and Oregon's poor passing, collaborated to stuff the Ducks' bittersweet 2006. They lost the last eight of a season in which they reached their first NCAA Tournament in 17 years. Last night, Oregon (17-12) hit zero in each of the first two games. Then it got really ugly.

"Everything we were struggling with late in the season we struggled with desperately tonight," OU coach Jim Moore said. "We didn't play well at all. Nobody found a way to hit around their block, so we were just hitting right into it."

Oregon hit negative .010 for the match. The Ducks' two-setter offense, designed to give them three front-row attackers on every rotation, only gave the 'Bows more to block.

Kari Gregory and Jamie Houston stuffed them silly. Gregory's 15 roofs were a school record for a sweep. Houston went for a career-high nine, with three devastating solos.

"All it took was to get them to pass the ball just off the net," said UH coach Dave Shoji. "If it's four or five feet off the net, then they become very predictable, and that really helps our block."

By contrast, the Ducks were blockless for 113 serves, from the time they were up 4-2 in the first — their largest advantage of the short night — until they trailed 16-9 in the third.

That came after the final Jayme Lee onslaught.

The freshman libero's precise serve was the catalyst for a 6-0 surge that put Hawai'i up, 24-12, in Game 1. Lee had two of her four aces in the streak, and Gregory two of her stuffs, as the Ducks' passing self-destructed.

"I was nervous," Lee said. "This was big-time; lose-and- you're-out kind of thing. But everybody else was so pumped up and so positive and encouraging. I think that helped me and Amber (Kaufman). We stuck to the game plan pretty much and went after one passer."

In the second, Lee served UH through two timeouts and a 9-0 run that made it 21-9. Lee had two more aces and two of her most spectacular digs, Gregory and Kanoe Kamana'o suffocated the net, and Houston went over Oregon for three of her match-high 15 kills.

Game 3 was predictably similar. The Ducks couldn't muster a smile, let alone a rally. Lee served a 6-0 run with Houston stuffing Neticia Enesi three straight times to make it 8-3.

"We knew their tendencies," Houston said, "so we just went up and over."

Enesi was one of three Ducks to hit for negative numbers. Sonja Newcombe, an all-Pac-10 honorable mention, was Oregon's most effective attacker, with seven kills and .000 hitting.

"There's no doubt this was our best match of the year," Shoji said. "Every phase of our game was on, especially our block."

The 'Bows' block was so precise they didn't have a net violation until they were up 16-8 in the third. Their much-maligned passing and serving was almost as dominant for the fourth match in a row. Senior Sarah Mason anchored the ballhandling against her former team. UH was aced once; Mason had three aces of her own.

"Our team has really matured," Shoji said. "Our lefts (Mason and Houston) have just been outstanding, not only in the front, but in the backcourt they've really steadied out. If they play well in the backcourt, we know we can score."

But so much against so little from a team that took two top-five teams (USC and Washington) to five games this season? Can Hawai'i keep it going and get back home?

"Our confidence is so high right now I think we'll continue to play well," Shoji said. "The competition will be better tomorrow, I'm sure, but when you play like that you can't wait to get back out there. We could play tonight if we had to.

"We have big motivation now. Almost too much."

NOTES

The crowd of 2,144 included about 200 UH fans. Former Rainbow Wahine Susie Boogaard was in the stands with her family. There was also a small bunch of Rainbow fans sitting on the Long Beach side with a Hawaiian flag, yelling "Aflac" every time Oregon's Mira Djuric loaded up her jump serve. Djuric, the Pac-10's best server, finished with no aces and two service errors. She is one of two Ducks off the Serbian junior national team.

UH has reached 22 regionals including the past eight. ... The 'Bows are 12-0 in the NCAA's second round. ... Senior Kanoe Kamana'o needs 19 assists to move into the NCAA's career Top 10. ... Oklahoma, one of the four seeded teams in the Honolulu Regional, was swept by Oral Roberts last night.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.