SACRAMENTO, Calif.-- The University of North Dakota volleyball team has advanced to the Big Sky Conference Tournament championship for the second straight season and will defend its title after a 3-1 win over Idaho Friday evening in the tourney semifinals.

UND's (29-7) defense was supurb throughout and its middle hitters provided 28 combined kills between senior Faith Dooley and Jordan Vail as North Dakota rallied from down one set to none.

"Tonight was a great match," UND head coach Mark Pryor said. "You hate to see a team end their season, but that's the nature of it in these things. After we just locked in and stopped making so many hitting errors like we did in that first set, the match really slowed down for us. It allowed our defense to really take over."

These teams have met in the conference tournament in each of the past three seasons and have 11 meetings in the four years they've been in the league together. Of those 11 meetings, five have gone the distance and this one was set up to follow that path to a tee. However, after North Dakota allowed that close first set loss, the Fighting Hawks took control of the match with two decisive set wins before a pivotal fourth set that saw UND overcome a slow start.

Idaho (18-11) escaped from a 22-22 tie in the opening set by scoring three of the final four points to grab the early advantage. Idaho's Sarah Sharp took two dozen swings as the two conference heavyweights went toe-to-toe. She had four kills in that frame, but UND held her to just four combined in the middle two stanzas to take control.

North Dakota had four players in double figures in digs as the defense continually stymied Idaho's big hitters. On the other side, UND made just seven total attack errors in the final three sets combined and hit .366 in that span, too much for the Vandals to handle.

The tide-turning second set was tight until North Dakota turned a 9-8 deficit into a 21-13 lead, racing to a 25-17 win into intermission. All of the momentum seemed to be with the Fighting Hawks at that point and they confirmed it quickly in the third as they sped out to an 8-2 advantage and never looked back en route to a 25-16 win this time.

Idaho's final push came early in the fourth as the Vandals led 9-5 to prompt a UND timeout. From there, North Dakota rallied to tie it at 15-all. With the score 18-18, Dooley recorded one of her 14 kills and North Dakota led for good. She would put the exclamation point on the match with a powerful punch right down the middle of the court for UND's fifth straight win at the Big Sky Conference Tournament.

"The one thing I'm pleased with is that we followed the game plan, so we were not just a group of great athletes playing to play," Pryor said. "They were actively engaged in the learning process. They saw the result of following the game plan. We wanted to play one more day. We are grateful for that. We have a feeling that we will be playing in a very hostile environment tomorrow. We know it is gonna be very tough, and possibly the most hostile crowd we've ever played. I said tough, but not impossible. With this group, nothing is."

Dooley and Vail each had 14 kills to pace North Dakota. Ashley Brueggeman added 13 while Sydney Griffin had 46 assists and 15 digs. Tamara Merseli also registered a double-double with 10 kills and 15 digs. Teodora Tepavac had a career-high 24 digs, part of five different UND players with double digits in that category. Alivia Fraase added 25 digs while Tamika Brekke had 10. 

The Fighting Hawks will await the winner of the second semifinal match between the host Sacramento State and fourth-seeded Portland State. Saturday's championship match is set for a 10:05 p.m. first serve on Eleven Sports and Pluto TV.