LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Middle Tennessee imposed its warp-speed will on ninth-ranked Hawai'i last night, ending the Rainbow Wahine's volleyball season in the second round of the NCAA Championship.

The Blue Raiders advanced to their first regional with a 30-22, 30-18, 15-30, 33-31 victory over the 'Bows, who will miss their first Sweet 16 in a decade.

For that, they can blame the Blue Raiders, who were sweetness personified most of last night. They won their 14th straight with an attack that was too quick for Hawai'i (27-6), a defense just short of magical and honorable mention All-American Ashley Adams.

She finished with 22 kills and hit .306, throwing in eight stuffs, nine digs and setting in her spare time. When the 'Bows finally began to slow her, Ashley Asberry, a 5-foot-9 hometown "basketball phenom" from Murfreesboro, drilled the final nails in their coffin with 10 fourth-game kills. She had 18 for the match and hit .556.

"There is a reason they are 34-2, because they are a good team," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "We knew that. We saw that in person. They are very difficult to defend. Obviously we started poorly, but I thought we had maybe turned the match around. We were serving for the game in the fourth. I wish we could have gone five, it would have been very interesting. But we just weren't able to stop their offense. We had no answer for Adams and Asberry, and credit to the setter (Leslie Clark) for freeing them up.

"I was proud of our team. We played dismally in Games 1 and 2, but we turned things around."

The Rainbow Wahine were 13-0 in second-round NCAA matches before last night's MT onslaught. It came before fewer than 200 at Kentucky International Convention Center and they all saw the best team win. Hawai'i's comeback was courageous, but MT is clearly the team that deserves to play Brigham Young in next weekend's Penn State Regional.

The Blue Raiders owned the first two games from the moment they got rid of their jitters with a three-straight-stuff series early in Game 1. The teams shared errors through eight ties, the last at 15, then MT put it into overdrive. Its mistakes disappeared and a 5-0 run gave it a 22-16 advantage.

"Again we started out flat," said UH senior Juliana Sanders, whose career ended along with Caroline Blood, Raeceen Woolford and Kari Gregory. "I said yesterday we couldn't come out flat because this is a team that had the potential and heart to beat us."

The Rainbows wouldn't recover until the 10-minute break after Game 2. They gave Middle Tennessee 15 points in the first game on errors, violations, drops and shanks. MT did not need the help, getting five blocks on its own and five kills from Adams, the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year.

It only got worse for the 'Bows in Game 2. Buoyed by their upset of 24th-ranked Louisville Friday and the ease of their first-game victory, the Blue Raiders scored the first three points. Adams was in on all three, stuffing UH All-American Jamie Houston twice and bashing another kill.

She would have six kills in the second game, without an error, helping her team to a .412 hitting percentage. Hawai'i was at .043 — 67 points higher than the opening game. MT broke it open with eight straight points to go up 14-6. Hawai'i would not get within seven again.

"For three-quarters of this match we were flawless," MT coach Matt Peck said. "I still think — and I'm hoping this happens next weekend — teams just don't know anything about us. That's hugely to our advantage. Whoever wins between Washington and BYU will be like, 'Who?' and that's fine with us."

The 'Bows finally brought the Blue Raiders back to earth in the third. Adams missed two of her first three swings and had but one kill as Hawai'i quickly proved it wasn't going away. The 'Bows never trailed and scored 22 of the final 29 points.

"We just got together as a team and discussed the reality that we are fighting for our season," UH captain Tara Hittle said. "We had to dig deep."

The 'Bows hit .486 and got their first ace at the 72-minute mark in the match. It was quickly followed by two more as MT's passing, which had been nearly perfect, faded to the point where it actually passed one serve backwards. Houston ended it with three straight kills, giving her 18. She finished with a match-high 25.

It was at least one short. As quickly as MT lost "it," it got "it" back, much as it had against Louisville. The Blue Raiders scored the first four points of Game 4. Worse yet for UH, Adams rediscovered her range. The left-handed right-side hitter had five kills as MT pulled ahead 13-9.

"Most teams are left-side oriented, but they're right side, and they're very, very good at it. It's a great weapon," Shoji said. "Adams has a lot of range, she's really smart, she can see the holes. She just beat us to the punch all night long."

Hawai'i couldn't consistently stop the Blue Raiders' small quick hitters, who rarely saw a set higher than the antenna. And it had to hammer away to put a ball down against the first defense to out-dig it in three months.

Still, Hawai'i hung on with just enough hitting, defense and determination to tie the game at 14, 15, 16 and 19 and finally got its first lead on the next point.

There would be eight more ties, and Hawai'i got two chances at the game when Clark's set went awry and Liz Ka'aihue got the 'Bows' sixth ace to make it 29-27. Sasha McGlothin and Adams erased the game points and combined to stuff Aneli Cubi-Otineru to give MT match point.

Otineru erased that, but Adams' kill gave MT another shot. Amber Kaufman buried that. Finally, a pass too close to the net forced setter Stephanie Brandt to set Kaufman too close. She touched the net and it was game, match and season.

"I think the first two games I was in shock," Peck said. "I thought they would play us a lot tougher. I was kinda concerned going into Game 3. Hawai'i is a tournament-tested team and we're not. ... In Game 3 we had breakdowns and we didn't really get past them. In Game 4 we had breakdowns and we got past them. That was huge."

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.