PORTLAND, Ore. — The young Portland State volleyball team passed their re-test. A week after the team dropped a five-set match to open their tournament in Orem, Utah, the Vikings and their seven freshmen – who ironically have yet to take a college exam due to Portland State being on the quarter system – gutted out a five-set win over Morgan State, 20-25, 25-15, 25-23, 21-25, 15-8. The win puts the Vikings off on the right foot for their home tournament, the Les Schwab Rose City Showdown, which got underway Friday morning at Viking Pavilion.
 
The Vikings (3-4) were unfortunate not to close out the match in the fourth set, as they led 21-19 late, but the Lady Bears (5-3) won the final six points to send the match to a fifth set. The Vikings had also led by seven earlier in the set at 15-8, only to see Morgan State close the gap to two with a 7-2 run.
 
Morgan State's comeback likely brought back flashes of last week, when Utah Valley came back from two sets down to beat the Vikings, 3-2, at their home tournament last Friday. However, this time around, the Vikings collected themselves well enough to take an early lead in the fifth set this time around, and closed the match on a 5-1 run.
 
"[With a young team] we have figure out ways to win and compete consistently," head coach Michael Seemann said after the match. "I thought especially in sets four and five we stayed a bit more consistent with the exception obviously of the end of the fourth set. We were giving equal value to points as we approach them, and I don't think we had been doing that, especially when teams are on runs against us.
 
"For a young group to get to set five and perform and have good, powerful swings and to stick some really good serves, I thought that was a huge step forward for us."
 
Freshman outside hitter Jasmine Powell stood out among all players on the court, let alone the freshmen, as she posted her third double-double of the season with 21 kills and 14 digs. Powell's 21 kills came against only two attack errors while she hit .373 for the match. Powell did not have an error in either the fourth or fifth sets, when she totaled nine kills on 18 swings.
 
No Viking freshman has had as many kills in a match as Powell since Eva Linden, who had 21 kills against Montana State as a freshman on Oct. 24, 2015.
 
"I thought Jasmine played really steady all match," Seemann said of Powell. "She did a really good job in all aspects of the game, and for a freshman to have a morning like that is awesome."
 
Powell wasn't the only freshmen to shine for the Vikings, either. Freshman libero Ellie Snook led all players with 22 digs in the match, the third time in seven matches so far that she's had 20-plus digs. Freshman setter Caroline Dragani also recorded a match-high 49 assists – the most assists by a Viking freshman in a match since former Big Sky MVP Garyn Schlatter had 50 assists against Montana back when she was a freshman on Nov. 26, 2010.
 
Dragani's play helped the Vikings post their best hitting percentage in a match since the Vikings' season-opening win over Saint Louis. The Vikings hit .264 against the Lady Bears Friday with 57 kills on 163 attacks while committing only 14 attack errors.
 
The Vikings did not commit any attack errors in the decisive fifth set, recording eight kills on 18 swings to hit .444 as a team. The Vikings also hit .355 in the second set, when they recorded 13 kills against only two attack errors while beating the Lady Bears 25-15.
 
The serve let the Vikings down early in the match. Morgan State recorded six service aces in the first set alone, while the Vikings committed four service errors on the other side of the net.
 
The Vikings took control from the get-go in set two, however, taking a 9-2 lead early that included two early blocks between the trio of Powell, freshman Riley Daniel and redshirt sophomore Parker Webb. The second set was the best blocking set of the match for the Vikings, as the team recorded four of their 10 blocks in the frame.
 
A solo block from Daniel made it 19-10 late in the second set, and the Vikings close out the set soon after that.
 
The third set was more back-and-forth as neither team led by more than one point after the early part of the set until the Vikings edged ahead at 21-18. Daniel and Webb combined for a block that made it 20-18 in favor of the Vikings, while Powell recorded another kill to make it 21-18. Morgan State came back to tie it at 21-21 following a timeout, but the Vikings won the next three points and eventually closed out the set, 25-23, on their third set point.
 
Besides the freshmen, senior outside hitter Toni McDougald overcame a rough start for her on serve receive to post 18 kills and eight digs. Half of McDougald's 18 kills came in the fourth and fifth sets, when she totaled nine kills on only 19 swings while committing only one attack error. McDougald only had two attack errors in the whole match, as she finished with a match-high .410 hitting percentage.
 
Webb also recorded her first double-double of the season with 13 kills and 11 digs for the Vikings.
 
Daniel led the way for the Vikings at the net, as she set a new career high with eight blocks between one solo and seven assists.
 
The Vikings return to the court later in the day Friday, as they face Nevada at 7:30 p.m. The Wolf Pack beat CSUN, 3-1, in their first match of the Les Schwab Rose City Showdown.