SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Portland State volleyball team may want to start scheduling matches in March every year.
 
Typically a month when basketball teams go on stretch runs, the Vikings find themselves on their own March run after winning a defensive battle with Sacramento State Saturday. The victory gives the Vikings their first win at The Nest since Oct. 18, 2014, and only their fifth win ever in Sacramento. What's more, the Hornets (8-6, 8-6 Big Sky) had been a formidable home team this season, going 7-0 at home before Saturday, a record that included a 3-1 win over the Vikings Friday. Three of those seven previous home wins had been sweeps for the Hornets, too, as they had been 21-5 in sets at The Nest before the Vikings beat them Saturday.
 
The Vikings (4-12, 3-11 Big Sky), meanwhile, have now won three of their last four matches, after sweeping Montana at home last weekend.
 
"This is a very satisfying win without a doubt. We gutted out some seriously long rallies," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said of the match afterwards. "We stayed patient offensively and relied on our defense. Last night we got tight and committed unforced errors in the long rallies. Today we converted those moments into defensive points."
 
The match didn't start out as a defensive battle, as the Vikings came out absolutely on fire in the first set. The Vikings recorded 17 kills on .359 hitting with the trio of Megan Sester, Zoe McBride and Parker Webb all recording four kills each in the set.
 
Things started to become much more defensive for the Vikings after that, however. The Vikings recorded a negative hitting percentage while dropping the second set, but then found their defensive groove in the third and fourth sets.
 
The Vikings recorded nine of their season-high 13 blocks in the third and fourth sets, as Ashleigh Barto and Jordan White stepped up to lead the Vikings at the net. Barto tied a career high with seven blocks to lead the Vikings in the match, and set another career high with three solo blocks against the Hornets. White, meanwhile, didn't enter the match until late in the second set, but then recorded all five of her blocks in the third and fourth sets.
 
White came up especially big late in the third set, when the Hornets were trying to mount a furious rally from 19-12 down. A 6-1 run got the Hornets back within two at 20-18, when White combined with Sester to snap the rally with a block. White then teamed up with Maddy Reeb for another block two points later that gave the Vikings a 23-18 lead. The team closed out the set a few points after that.
 
"Jordan came in and influenced the net with her timely blocking today," Seemann said of White.
 
White combined with Webb for another block in the fourth set that gave the Vikings a 15-9 lead and sparked a Sacramento State timeout as the Vikings started to taste victory. The block came as part of a 7-0 Viking run, the star of which was Sester, who recorded three different kills in the spurt for the Vikings.
 
The Vikings led 17-9 by the end of the run, and it was 19-12 again a few points later. Same as the third set, however, the Hornets mounted a comeback from there, eventually getting back within two at 21-19. The Vikings got a bit lucky as the Hornets committed a service error to end the run, and Sester followed with a kill to make it 23-19. Sester then traded points with the Hornets from there, and eventually closed out the win for the Vikings with her seventh kill of the fourth set and 19th of the match.
 
Sester's 19 kills put her one off her season high, which she set in a five-set match against Northern Colorado on Feb. 15. Sester also had 12 kills in Friday's loss to the Hornets, giving her 31 in eight sets this weekend for an average of 3.88 kills per set.
 
Sester was the only Viking to finish in double figures for kills Saturday, but she was far from the only Viking to influence the match. It was a pick-your-hero type of match for the Vikings. Besides Sester, Barto added seven kills to her seven blocks, while McBride and Webb did a little bit of everything for the Vikings. McBride finished with seven kills, two aces, 14 digs and two blocks, while Webb chipped in six kills, three aces, nine digs and four blocks.
 
Webb's three aces matched a season high for her, while the Vikings finished with nine aces as a team to tie their second highest total in a match this season. The Vikings only committed five service errors, as well, which put them in contrast to the Hornets, who also had nine aces but undermined that with nine service errors.
 
Junior setter Ally Wada recorded her 10th double-double of the season with 33 assists and 17 digs Saturday. Wada's 17 digs tied her season high, which she originally set in the Vikings' match against Eastern Washington on Feb. 7.
 
Sophomore libero Ellie Snook led all players with 24 digs Saturday, the last of which came on a screamer from the Hornets that set up Sester's penultimate kill of the match.
 
The Vikings will now return home for their final two matches of the regular season, as they host Idaho State on March 19 and 20. The Vikings open the series at 6 p.m. on Friday, the 19th.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 24-48 all-time against the Hornets following Saturday's win…The Vikings also improved to 5-24 all-time on the road against the Hornets…Sester's 19 kills set a new four-set season high for her…Barto has 30 blocks in the Vikings' past five matches, giving her an average of 1.5 blocks per set during that stretch…Snook needs only four digs after Saturday's match to tie Marija Vojnovic (2006-09) for eighth all-time in career digs during the program's Big Sky era (1996-pres.).