PORTLAND, Ore. — One of these has to go our way eventually, right?
 
For the sixth time in its first seven matches, the Portland State volleyball team went to five sets. This time, the Vikings took the defending Big Sky champions in Northern Colorado to five only to fall in the final set and lose, 3-2 (25-20, 23-25, 25-21, 20-25, 15-10).
 
There are no moral victories, but the Vikings (1-6, 0-5 Big Sky) will be happy with having outplayed the Bears (6-1, 6-1 Big Sky) at times at Viking Pavilion. The Vikings outhit the Bears.289-to-.277 in the match, out-dug them 65-to-61, and out-blocked them 8.0-to-6.0. The Vikings didn't hit worse than .243 in any set but the fifth, while their overall hitting percentage of .289 marked a new season high by close to 70 percentage points.
 
And it's not as if the Vikings were doing this against a weak defense. The Bears came into the match leading the Big Sky with an opponent hitting percentage of .118 after holding perennial conference power Sacramento State to no better than .060 in either of their matches last weekend.
 
"I thought we played well tonight. I thought we got some good production out of the middles. I think we just had too many unforced errors, and timely errors, and that's what's been haunting us, I think. It's not like we played any more or less aggressive than they did. They just came at the wrong time," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said afterward.
 
"We also had them, in the fifth set, in the rotations we wanted them. We had them off the net where we wanted them and we let them out. I think that's the difference, too. We've got to close the door when we put them in those situations. We had them off the net, we had them scrambling, and we let them out. We've got an opportunity tomorrow to do it better."
 
The Vikings played their best set of any match so far this season in the fourth, hitting .441 with a seasonal-best 19 kills on 34 swings and only four errors. The Vikings showed their depth in the fourth, too, as Parker Webb, Maddy Reeb and Megan Sester all had five or more kills in the frame.
 
Sester led the Vikings with a match-high 20 kills overall, setting a new Portland State career high for the second straight outing. Sester had 17 kills in the Vikings' previous match against Eastern Washington on Feb. 8, giving her 37 total across the last two matches.
 
"Offensively, Megan's a beast. She's doing a great job for us. When we're getting stuck in rotations, being able to dish it out to her and have her get us out of those, every good team has one of those and she's developing into that pretty well," Seemann said of Sester.
 
Sester's dominance didn't stop setter Ally Wada from distributing the ball nicely to the Vikings' hitters. Six different Vikings finished with at least six kills in the match, while five of those six players hit at least .250 or better. Wada finished with 53 assists as a result, and picked up her sixth straight double-double to start her Viking career as she added 15 digs against the Bears.
 
Webb recorded her own double-double – her second straight – with 11 kills and 12 digs while also leading the team with five blocks. Reeb came within a kill of a double-double thanks to a late flurry in the fourth and fifth sets. Reeb only had one kill through the first three sets but finished with nine to go with 11 digs.
 
The Bears took a quality first set, 25-20, as both teams hit over .300 in the frame. The Vikings then responded with their best defensive set of the match, forcing the Bears into 10 attack errors and a match-low .139 hitting percentage. Four of the Vikings' eight blocks in the match came in the second set, with Webb and freshman Ashleigh Barto recording three block assists each.
 
The Vikings fell behind 21-16 late in the third set, but nearly made it all up with a 4-0 run that got them within one. Sester had back-to-back kills to start the rally, while sophomore libero Ellie Snook followed with an ace. Barto and Wada then combined for a block out of a timeout that made it 21-20. The Bears recovered to win the third set, but that late comeback gave the Vikings momentum at the start of the fourth.
 
The Vikings ran out to an 8-3 lead at the start of the fourth set, with Reeb proving the last two points on back-to-back kills. The Bears got back within two multiple times in the middle of the set, but the Vikings had the answers each time. Reeb traded points with the Bears herself with three late kills, the last of which made it 20-17 in favor of the Vikings. Sester then recorded two kills and a solo block a little later, with the block giving the Vikings set point at 24-19. Webb closed out the set with a crafty tip over the top of the Bears' blockers.
 
All of the Vikings' momentum went out the window at the start of the fifth, however, as the Bears ran out to a 4-0 lead. The Bears' tough serving, which gave the Vikings fits all night, came to the forefront again at the start of the fifth. The Bears scored their third point of the set on an ace, then got the Vikings out of rhythm with another tough serve that led to a kill on the following point. The Bears finished with 13 service aces in the match, nine of which came in the three sets they won.
 
A 3-1 Viking run that featured two kills from Sester and one from Wada got the team back within two at 6-4. The teams traded points from there until a service error and an attack error from Northern Colorado brought the Vikings back within one at 11-10. That'd be the last the Vikings would score, however, as the Bears finished with four straight points to clinch the match.
 
Besides Sester, Webb and Reeb, Jasmine Powell chipped in eight kills for the Vikings, while Barto and fellow middle blocker Julia Haynie added six kills each. Barto and Haynie both hit over .500 in the match, as their 12 kills combined came on only 20 swings and against only one error. Barto also added four blocks for the Vikings, while Haynie had three.
 
The Vikings will hope to exact some revenge on the Bears tomorrow, as the teams face each other again at 7 p.m.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings fell to 20-17 all-time against the Bears after Monday's loss…The Bears have won eight of their last nine meetings with the Vikings…The Bears successfully hit away from the Vikings' Snook, who had a season-low 16 digs Monday.