PORTLAND, Ore. — Give us the Portland State volleyball team's first win over Sacramento State in five years, snapping a 10-match losing streak to the Hornets.
 
Give us a comeback from a two-sets-to-one deficit in which the Vikings trailed 14-9 in the fourth set.
 
Give us a final play that saw senior Mary Jo McBride pass to senior Toni McDougald for the final kill of the match.
 
Give us all that, and we have Tuesday night for the Vikings, who beat Sacramento State, 3-2 (25-19, 21-25, 16-25, 25-19, 15-12), on Senior Night at Viking Pavilion.
 
The nuts and bolts of Tuesday night's win would have ordinarily been enough for any Viking fan. The Vikings hit .533 in the first set, the first time the Vikings have hit over .500 in a set this season. The Vikings also outhit the Hornets .286-to-.221, the third time in the Vikings' past four matches that the offense has hit .274 or better.
 
But coming up with this match when the Vikings desperately needed a win to boost their Big Sky tournament hopes took it to another level. The Vikings hadn't beaten the Hornets since Oct. 18, 2014, but won the match nevertheless. The Vikings knew they needed to win to better their chances of qualifying for the conference tournament, and they delivered.
 
"We just got really, really tough in the fifth set. For MJ and Toni to come in and do what they did as seniors on Senior Night was inspiring. I couldn't be more proud of this group. To pick this moment and to get after it like we did was huge," head coach Michael Seemann said afterwards.
 
The first sign Tuesday night was going to be something special came in the first set, when the Vikings recorded 16 kills on 30 swings without committing an attack error. Eight of the Vikings' first nine attempts in the match went down for kills, as the Vikings were hitting .889 as a team while taking a 13-9 lead in the first set. Redshirt sophomore Parker Webb recorded seven kills on eight swings in the first set, giving her a ridiculous .875 hitting percentage in the frame.
 
The offense cooled off for the Vikings in the second and third sets, however, while the Hornets won several easy points off their serve. Ten of the Hornets' 13 service aces came in second and third sets, including three in a row in the third set as the Hornets went up two sets to one on the Vikings.
 
The Hornets still held complete control of the match while leading the Vikings 14-9 in the fourth set when things finally turned back towards the Vikings. Webb got the Vikings started with back-to-back kills, while libero Ellie Snook followed with her second ace of the match to get the Vikings back within two at 14-12. Sacramento State won the next point out of a timeout, but the Vikings responded with seven straight points to take a 19-15 lead.
 
"Between sets two and three, we believed that we had figured out the puzzle, we just failed to execute. I think we knew who needed to score and how we were going to do that, but we weren't making the plays," Seemann said. "We started executing in the fourth set, and it came out in our blocks in that fourth set."
 
Freshmen Jasmine Powell and Julia Haynie came alive in the Vikings' 7-0 run in the fourth. Powell started the run with back-to-back kills, then combined with Haynie for a block that tied the set up at 15-all. Haynie followed with another block, this time with McDougald, and then recorded a kill from the middle that put the Vikings up 17-15.
 
McDougald scored for the Vikings on the next point, before a Hornet attack error made it 19-15 in favor of the Vikings.
 
The Vikings maintained at least a three-point lead the rest of the way, and eventually closed out the set with kills from Maddy Reeb, McBride and Riley Daniel on three of the last four points of the set.
 
An early 4-0 run gave the Vikings a 5-1 lead at the start of the fifth set, the last two points of which foreshadowed what would happen at the end of the match as McBride aced the Hornets and then fed McDougald for a kill. The Hornets battled back to within two points at 6-4, but the Vikings quickly stretched their lead back to four.
 
Things got hairy for the Vikings when the Hornets scored three straight points to get back within one at 12-11. Sarah Davis, the Big Sky's leader in aces per set, was serving for the Hornets, and she had a good enough serve to just keep things rolling for the Hornets.
 
Webb got a big kill to stop the bleeding, however, while McBride – just as she had done earlier in the set – aced the Hornets to give the Vikings match point at 14-11. Two points later, McBride's set to McDougald on the left side of the net ended the match for the Vikings.
 
Webb finished with a team-high 14 kills on .367 hitting, the fifth straight match in which she's hit .345 or better. Powell followed with 13 kills on .323 hitting, and has now hit .300 or better in two of the Vikings' past three matches. Powell also recorded eight digs for the Vikings, one behind Reeb, who was a dig away from a double-double with 11 kills and nine digs.
 
McBride and freshman Caroline Dragani split time at setter against the Hornets, and each led the Vikings to kills on 40 percent or more of their sets. McBride recorded 26 assists Tuesday, just ahead of Dragani, who finished with 24 assists against the Hornets.
 
Snook led all players with 24 digs, some of which turned what appeared to be sure points for the Hornets in the Vikings' favor.
 
The Vikings will now close the regular season against Northern Colorado, who they face n the road at 6 p.m. (PT) / 7 p.m. (MT) Thursday. A win Thursday coupled with a Montana loss to Weber State would clinch a tournament spot for the Vikings.
 
The Vikings are only in that position after winning Tuesday, however, and only did that after one of the more memorable Senior Nights in recent years.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 23-47 all time against Sacramento State with Tuesday night's win…The Vikings improved to 13-37 in the Big Sky series between them and Sacramento State…Tuesday's match was the eighth five-setter for the Vikings, the second-most five-set matches the Vikings have played in a season since joining the Big Sky in 1996…The Vikings are now 4-4 in five-set matches…Snook now has 597 digs this season, leaving her 38 digs from tying Kasimira Clark's single-season school record of 635, which she set in 2012…Snook remains ahead of pace to break Clark's single-season record for digs per set. Snook averages 5.53 digs per set after Tuesday, while Clark set the record with 5.38 digs per set in 2012.