Two ranked teams took entertaining turns making each other look bad in last night's 14th annual Honolulu Advertiser Volleyball Challenge. Finally, 11th-ranked Hawai'i found its rhythm and ran away with the fifth set to deny 12th-ranked Minnesota.

The scores were 25-22, 21-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-7, before a crowd of 3,519 at Stan Sheriff Center.

It was the Rainbow Wahine's first victory over a ranked team in three tries this season and evened their record at 2-2. The Golden Gophers, who had just three kills in the decisive game, dropped to 3-1. They are coming off their ninth straight NCAA appearance.

After the roller-coaster ride of the first four sets, and Hawai'i's inability to close teams out for two weeks, the fifth set was stunning.

"Everybody was blowing assignments," said Amber Kaufman, who dropped in on five of Hawai'i's seven stuffs and had 12 kills. "I think when it comes to crunch time we tend to buckle down and do what we're supposed to do."

UH freshman Kanani Herring was the most consistent player on the court. She skied for 21 kills and groveled for 16 digs in her second straight double-double performance. Two of her kills came in a decisive 5-0 Rainbow run in the fifth, with Tara Hittle serving, that made it 8-2.

"It was hard to swallow knowing we didn't come through for the second and fourth game," Herring said. "After we lost the fourth game we just decided to loosen up. A lot of us were just a little bit tight. It was like 'Oh my gosh, we've been in this situation before where we are stuck.' We wanted to do something about it. Fifth game, I thought we all just had fun out there which we should have done in the beginning. And, we got the job done."

The 'Bows' ballhandling, which had seen good and evil all night, was pretty much perfect in the final set and came up with a remarkable 17 digs in the shortened format. The Gophers hit for negative numbers, with five errors and a series of bizarre plays that made coach Mike Hebert shake his head.

"This team hasn't really been in this position yet," Hebert said. "It was clear to me that they held themselves together fairly well for four games. I don't know whether it was the weight of the experience, the challenge of the Hawai'i serving and their left-side dominance — those were the two things I thought were the difference in the match — but I don't know what made us kind of implode there."

Hawai'i won the first set despite hitting less than .100 and self-destructing late, helping Minnesota score five straight and tie it at 20 with two ballhandling errors and a hitting error. The difference ultimately was serving, with the 'Bows scoring five points off theirs and the Gophers missing four.

The Rainbow Wahine imploded late again in the second, and this time it cost them. They went ahead 20-18 with four straight points — Kaufman getting two kills and two stuffs — but gave up six straight after a Gopher timeout. Minnesota had a kill and block during the surge, while the 'Bows made three hitting errors and missed a serve.

Fittingly, it ended on another mistake as Jamie Houston made her seventh hitting error, to go with six kills. But behind Herring, Hawai'i scored the first three points of the third set and this time it didn't allow the Gophers back in. UH hit .500 in the set, with Houston (five kills) and Aneli Cubi-Otineru (3) rallying, and Herring leading the way with seven kills.

After getting two net violations from UH, Minnesota won the ragged fourth set on its third set point. The Gophers were led by 6-foot-4 Kyla Roehrig with 16 kills. Lauren Gibbemeyer got a double-double the hard way, with 11 kills and 10 of Minnesota's 14 blocks. But in the fifth, none of that mattered.

"We were disappointed last week that we couldn't close," Shoji said. "We know we have to do that in close matches, but it's easier said than done. ... We played good defense last week and we just couldn't convert. Tonight, in the fifth game, we did. ... Minnesota is a good team. They will be in the NCAAs, they'll be at the top of the Big Ten, so that's a huge win for us."

In the early match, Cincinnati (4-0) kept Wyoming winless with a 17-25, 25-9, 25-18, 25-14 victory. Cincinnati rallied from negative .100 hitting in the first set behind Jessie Nevitt (9 kills, .471 hitting) and Stephanie Niemer (11 and .250). Cincinnati had 16 aces, five each by Jessica Elley and Missy Harpenau.

QUICK SETS

There was a moment of silence before the match to honor Kim Gregory, father of former Rainbow Wahine Kari Gregory. Kim, who traveled with his wife Deb to nearly all the UH matches the past four years, died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a brief bout with cancer that was complicated by kidney problems. The family lives in Las Vegas.