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EL PASO – Behind the play of outside hitters Megan Ellis and Aubrey Mitchell, and libero Nicole Bateham, Portland State swept its final two matches at the El Paso Sports Commission Volleyball Invitational on Saturday, making quick work of both UT Arlington and Southern.

The Vikings' season-opening trip to the Lone Star State can be considered a success after they went 3-1 despite a roster that features six freshmen and four sophomores. PSU's upperclassmen, namely Bateham and Ellis, set the pace all weekend, while the newcomers got thrown into the fire, so to speak.

PSU opened the day with a 25-16, 25-21, 27-25 victory over UT Arlington, then disposed of Southern in just one hour by scores of 25-20, 25-13, 25-14.

"They (Bateham and Ellis) were kind of our anchors," said PSU Head Coach Michael Seemann. "Not to take anything away from (setters) Garyn (Schlatter) or Domi (Kristinikova), because they had a tough task of trying to figure out who our hot hitters were, but Megan and Nicole were our most consistent players on the floor this weekend."

Ellis led PSU with 18 kills against UT Arlington, while Bateham had a team-high 19 digs.

After the Vikings took the opening set pretty handily, UT Arlington put up more of a fight over the final two frames. The Mavericks led for much of set two, but they committed back-to-back attack errors late that broke a tie score and put Portland State up, 20-18.

The Mavericks then appeared to have set three in the bag with a 24-21 lead. They needed just one more point to extend the match, but Ellis hammered home two straight kills to kick start a 4-0 run that gave the Vikings the lead. UTA knotted the set back up on a kill by Amanda Aguilera, before the Vikings closed out the contest on consecutive kills from freshman Leigh-Ann Haataja.

"I was really happy that we were able to work through some stressful moments after being down in that final set. They (UT Arlington) called a couple of late timeouts and each time we were able to come out of those and run some set plays and execute."

In addition to Bateham's 19 digs, the Vikings received 10 from Schlatter and a career-high 11 from Kaeli Patton. Schlatter also had 27 assists to record her first double-double of the year.

The Vikings tallied 11 team blocks, with Haataja and Mitchell both recording five apiece. Mitchell, a sophomore who also had eight kills, set a new career-high for the second straight day.

After a few hours off, Portland State easily won its final match of the two-day event, sweeping Southern. The first set had seven tie scores and three lead changes, but the Vikings dominated the final two frames.

Southern was able to tie the second set up at 7-7, before the Vikings used a 12-2 run to take command. PSU then led the entire way in the final set.

The Vikings hit .340 in the match as freshman Katie O'Brien had a .800 (8-0-10) attack percentage and Mitchell registered a .667 (9-1-12) mark. 

Mitchell had an impressive day, also serving up two aces against Southern and hitting a combined .467 over the two matches.

"We were able to get in a really good rhythm with her (Mitchell) against Southern. For the first time even since last year I felt like her and Garyn were in a groove together. Garyn set her really well today," Seemann said.

Also for Portland State, Ellis recorded nine kills in only two sets of action, Schlatter dished out 34 assists and Bateham led all players with 15 digs.

All 13 players on the Vikings' roster saw action during the tournament, which allowed Seemann to see multiple lineups.

"No doubt this was a successful trip for us. Obviously we have an inexperienced group, so coming here and playing four matches over two days gave us the chance to put a lot of different combinations out of the floor and see how the newcomers would react to playing college ball. With so many moving pieces things could have gone bad fast. Our older players kept things anchored and our freshmen got a valuable experience. To do all of that and come out of here with a winning record is a lot more than we could have asked for," said Seemann.

NOTES: PSU is back in action on Wednesday, hosting Seattle at 7 p.m. ... Ellis was named to the all-tournament team after averaging 4.42 kps and hitting .284 (53-13-141) ... the Vikings hit .299 today, while holding the other two teams to a .099 mark. For the tournament, PSU hit .243 ... Bateham tallied five aces at the tourney and had at least one in every match ... this was the first time that PSU and UTA had played since 1981. This was the first time PSU and Southern had ever played ... all three of PSU's victories were sweeps. The last time their first three wins came via the sweep was in Seemann's first season in 2007.