STANFORD, Calif. — Hawai'i chased its final-four dream through a volleyball season of dominance that still left doubt. Last night, dominance won out at Maples Pavilion.

The third-ranked Rainbow Wahine, seeded 12th by the NCAA, swept their way back to the final four by defeating 13th-seeded Michigan, 25-23, 25-19, 25-18.

Fittingly, Hawai'i won the Stanford Regional on a dark, rainy day broken up only by a series of spectacular rainbows.

"We are thrilled to advance to the final four," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "It's been our goal all year. I don't know how many people actually believed we'd make it this far, but the players believed and the coaching staff believed and we're going.

"We haven't been since 2003 and we're proud to be representing our university and our state in the final four."

The 'Bows (32-2) will take a 28-match winning streak into Thursday's national semifinal against top-ranked Penn State (36-0) at the St. Pete Times Forum in Florida. The Nittany Lions' streak hit 100 last night after a 25-18, 25-17, 25-22 sweep of California, and they are going for an unprecedented third consecutive NCAA championship.

In its ninth NCAA final four, Hawai'i will be attempting to win a fourth national title and first since 1987. But for now, it will savor what has become a magical season.

The Rainbow Wahine's success so far has been made sweeter by the No. 12 seed they were given despite a winning streak that goes back to Sept. 6. They took out the Pac-10's two top teams the first three weeks of the year. They beat USC at USC last weekend to get to this regional.

They took out two Big Ten teams here,still leaving two in the final four. And the 'Bows broke the spirit of Illinois and Michigan at this regional. The Big Ten came up way short against the best — by far — the Western Athletic Conference had to offer.

"This definitely puts us back on the map," said UH setter Dani Mafua, who launched her team's offense into hyper-drive this year to compensate for its small size. "A lot of other teams were doubting us, especially because of our size. We're definitely a team and we stick together and that's what makes us so successful. We have each other's backs no matter what. This is a great win for the program, and it's just a start."

That quality, and what Shoji simply called "Wahine volleyball," did not give the Wolverines a chance last night, in Hawai'i's ninth straight road match.

"One of our goals is to consistently put pressure on teams and get them to break a little bit," said Michigan coach Mark Rosen, whose team is the only one to take Penn State to five sets this year. "I never felt at any time did we get enough pressure on them to feel like we could swing the momentum."

Shoji was ecstatic, though he admitted it got a bit "ugly" because of the magnitude of the moment.

"It was probably nerves," said UH sophomore Kanani Danielson, the regional's Most Outstanding Player. "We were so excited to even make it this far. We tried our best to not think about it, a couple points slid for us, but other than that we hung in there and took care of business and everything started to flow really nicely for us."

Hawai'i had tremendous balance in its 18th regional final, with every attacker getting at least six kills. It was again led by its sophomores, with Danielson going for 11 and Stephanie Ferrell following up a career-high 19 Friday with 10 more.

Senior Amber Kaufman, who aggravated an abdominal strain and missed most of Friday's match, started last night and collected eight kills on .636 hitting, with two blocks.

"I just got a nice little tape job and tried to grit it out," Kaufman smiled, in stark contrast to her tears that flowed Friday when she had to come out. "It worked."

Shoji told Kaufman it was her decision to play last night. She didn't practice during the day and did very little in warmups, which worried him. But when he asked her before filling out the lineup card, she assured him she was ready "absolutely."

"I was very happy to see her ready to go," Danielson said. "She's been working so hard to get back just having her presence on the court lifted us up big time. Knowing we have that quick, jumpy, springy Amber back and knowing it will help out Dani."

Like Ferrell, freshman Brittany Hewitt added to her breakout weekend. She was in on five of the Rainbows' seven stuffs and had six kills as the middles hit .600.

Senior Aneli Cubi-Otineru (10 digs) and libero Liz Ka'aihue (8) anchored a defense that destroyed Michigan's confidence and stole its swagger early, along with the Hawai'i serving. Those two and Danielson also prevented the hard-serving Wolverines from getting an ace.

"They absolutely won the serve-pass game," Rosen said. "They served very well. They do a great job of hitting serves that look the same but drop short or get up high. The trajectory of it is insane. It's very hard to read. Our passers were struggling with it all night long.

"At the same time, I thought their passers were outstanding. We are a good serving team, that's something we hang our hat on. For us to get zero aces and we didn't serve poorly tonight."

Michigan bolted to a 12-8 advantage in the opening set on 3-0 service runs from all-region players Juliana Paz and Lexi Zimmerman. Hawai'i was hitting negative .200.

But Kaufman served five straight to put UH ahead. By the time Ka'aihue was done serving three in a row, the 'Bows led 19-16. In that span, the Wolverines had just two kills and twice as many hitting errors. They would get within one, but never catch the Rainbows.

Buoyed by their success, the 'Bows trailed only at 3-4 in the next set. Stephanie Brandt served UH into a 6-4 lead with the first point coming on UH's initial block, by Mafua.

Soon after, Mafua and Hewitt stuffed Paz. The Wolverines' most prolific attacker finished with nine kills, but most were meaningless. She had just three — with four errors — after the second set.

Hawai'i pulled ahead 19-16 on Mafua's ace — the 'Bows' third of the set. Michigan called time, scored a point, but then lost three in row with Kaufman serving.

The Wolverines called their last timeout at 22-17 and it was over a few minutes later on Ferrell's sixth kill. All three UH outsides had six kills in the first two sets, while middles Kaufman and Hewitt were a combined 8-for-10.

Danielson took over the third set, flying over the Wolverines for five kills as Hawai'i never trailed.

The 13th-seeded Wolverines finished their finest season 27-10. They got 13 kills from sophomore Alex Hunt, who hit .394. Her teammates could come up with only 21 more kills and hit a combined .066 as the UH defense stuffed its opponents' major threats for the third consecutive match.

In Thursday's other semifinal, 11th-seeded Minnesota (28-8) will play second-seeded Texas (28-1). The Gophers beat third-seeded Florida State, 25-20, 25-7, 18-25, 25-17, and the Longhorns dropped 10th-seeded Nebraska, 21-25, 25-18, 25-16, 25-17.

NOTES

There were 2,925 tickets sold and the crowd, which might have been half that much, was dominated by Hawai'i fans.

Penn State coach Russ Rose will attempt to become the third women's volleyball coach to reach 1,000 wins when his team plays Hawai'i Thursday. UCLA's Andy Banachowski was the first and UH's Dave Shoji became the second this season.