PORTLAND, Ore. – In a battle of two evenly matched teams, the Portland State volleyball team came up just short, falling in four sets to the Sacramento State Hornets Saturday night at the Peter W. Stott Center.
 
Portland State (10-6 overall, 2-2 Big Sky Conference) took the first set 25-15 before falling to Sacramento State (10-8, 4-0) 25-20, 25-20, and 25-23 over the next three sets drop the match.
 
Coming into the match you knew that it was going to be close and that's exactly what happened. In the end, it came down to too many attacking errors by the Vikings over the final set. The Hornets out-hit the Vikings .271-to-.219 for the match and .256-to-.135 in the final frame.
 
Senior OH Pati Anae came up big again for the Vikings with a match-high 20 kills. She added 16 digs for her seventh double-double of the season, which is tied for the most on the team with junior S Erin Clark.
 
Clark came up just shy of her own double-double with 48 assists and eight digs in the match. She also tallied a season-high six kills as she was able to attack the middle of the Hornets defense.
 
Sophomore OH Sarah Brennan put together the best hitting performance of her career with a career-high 17 kills on a career-high 38 swings. She hit .342 (17-4-28) for the match with a pair of blocks. She added a pair of service aces to go along with the three she recorded Thursday against Montana State.
 
Sophomore OH Jenna Mullen came off the bench for eight kills, while Katy Wilson added seven from her middle position.  
 
The Vikings came out with confidence in front of a noisy home crowd. Portland State tallied a pair of service aces with no service errors in the opening frame, while hitting .238. The Vikings held the Hornets to just a .097 hitting mark in the first with just seven kills compared to the Vikings' 18.
 
Portland State got out to a 10-5 lead early in the first set before the Hornets took three of the next four points to cut the lead to 11-8. Three-straight points by PSU got its lead back up to 14-8, which forced a Sacramento State timeout. Anae came out of the timeout with her fourth kill of the set to put the Vikings up 15-8. Brennan make it 16-8 with her third kill of the set before a Sacramento State attacking error made it 17-8, which forced another timeout.
 
Junior L Tasha Bojanic, who led the Vikings with a match-high 21 digs, came out of the timeout with her second ace of the service rotation. Anae came up with a big kill off the block to extend the Vikings run to 8-0 to make it a 19-8 lead. After a Hornet kill ended the Vikings' scoring run, back-to-back kills from Wilson and Clark made it 21-9. The Hornets closed the gap but a kill from Brennan gave the Vikings the 25-15 win in the opening set.
 
The second stayed much closer during the early stages. Sacramento State took its first lead of the match after back-to-back service aces to take a 6-5 lead. The Vikings came back and tied it on the very next point to make it 6-6. The teams traded points back and forth before the Hornets took a three-point lead at 11-8, which forced a Portland State timeout.
 
Sacramento State extended its lead out of the timeout with its third service aces of the set to make it 12-8. After another kill by Sacramento State extended its lead to 13-8, the Vikings came back with back-to-back kills to make it 13-10.
 
The Hornets added to their lead to make it 15-10, which forced Portland State's second and final timeout of the set. The Hornets extended their lead before taking the second set 25-20.
 
Portland State got out to an early 9-4 lead in the third set before Sacramento State cut the lead to three at 9-6. Three-straight kills, including back-to-back by Anae, put the Vikings up 12-6, which forced a Sacramento State timeout. The Hornets came out of the timeout and cut the lead to 13-10, which forced the Vikings to call a timeout.
 
The Hornets came battled their way back and took the lead at 18-17 before the Vikings tied it on the next point to make it 18-18. Brennan's 13th kill of the match, which tied her previous career high, gave the Vikings back the lead at 19-18. A kill from sophomore MB Mikaelyn Sych put the Vikings up two at 20-18, which forced Sacramento State's second timeout of the set.
 
Three-straight points by Sacramento State gave the Hornets the lead at 21-20, which forced another timeout by the Vikings. Portland State was unable to end Sacramento State's run and fell 25-20 in the third. The Hornets finished the set on a 7-0 run capped with four-straight kills.
 
Sacramento State carried its momentum into the fourth, taking an early 7-3 lead. The Vikings went into their bench looking for something to change the momentum. Sophomore OH Eva Linden came in for the first time in the match and came up with back-to-back kills to make it 7-5. The Vikings cut it to 7-6 when a Sacramento State attack sailed long. After the Hornets went up 9-7, Sych pulled Portland State again within one with a solo block straight to the floor.
 
After a Hornets kill, they served it into the net before Brennan's 16th kill of the match tied it at 10-10. Portland State took the lead for the first time in the set after a Sacramento State attack went wide. The teams started to trade points back and forth before the Vikings took a two-point lead at 15-13 on Clark's sixth kills of the match after a long rally.
 
Points once again bounced back and forth before four-straight points by Sacramento State gave the Hornets an 18-16 lead, forcing a Portland State timeout.
 
Sych came up with another solo block in the middle of the net coming out of the timeout to pull the Vikings within one at 18-17. The Vikings gave the point back with a service error but were fortunate that the Hornets did the same thing. Back-to-back blocks by the Vikings tied the set and then gave them a 20-19 lead, forcing a Sacramento State timeout.
 
The teams continued to battle back and forth until Sacramento State went up 24-23, putting Portland State up against match point. After a long rally the final Portland State attack went long and the Vikings fell 25-23 in the final frame.  
 
Portland State hits the road again next week for a pair of tough road matches beginning in Greeley, Colo. against the Northern Colorado Bears on Thursday, Oct. 6. The Vikings then head to North Dakota for a Saturday, Oct. 8 showdown with the North Dakota Fighting Hawks.
 
NOTES:
• Pati Anae posted her seventh double-double of the season with 20 kills and 16 digs.
• Sarah Brennan posted a career-high 17 kills on a career-high 38 attacks.
• Portland State is now 2-2 at home and 8-3 when it wins the opening set.