EUGENE, Ore. — Head coach Michael Seemann introduced competition as early and as often as he could in his Portland State volleyball team's fall camp. Part of that came with the hope that his team would respond well when challenged this season. Saturday marked only the second match of the season, but the early signs back Seemann up as his Vikings came back from a tough first set to beat Santa Clara, 3-1 (14-25, 25-21, 25-21, 25-10), in a neutral-site match at Matthew Knight Arena.
 
Two responses – one after the first set and another after Santa Clara went on a 6-1 run to take a 20-18 lead in the crucial third set – showed the competitive fire this year's Vikings hope to have throughout this season.
 
The first response came after Santa Clara (0-3) hit .432 (19-3-37) while running away with the opening set of the match. The Broncos didn't sniff that level of efficiency the rest of the way, as the Viking defense stepped up from there. Nine of the Vikings' 11 blocks Saturday came after the opening set, while the Broncos didn't hit better than .184 in any frame after the first.
 
"It took our block and defense some time to get some of the timing elements down on their outside attackers," Seemann said after the match. "Once we did better eye work, our block became more effective."
 
The second response came in the third set, when the Vikings truly took control of the match. The Vikings took a small, early advantage, going up by as many as three points at various points, before a 6-1 Santa Clara run put the Broncos five points away from a 2-1 advantage at 20-18.
 
Four straight kills from the Vikings flipped the script on the Broncos. Sophomore Ashleigh Barto bookended the run with two kills of her own, while Makayla Lewis and Parker Webb provided the middle two. Barto stood tall again two points later when she blocked Santa Clara's six-foot, five-inch, All-West Coast Conference hitter Julia Sangiacomo at the net to give the Vikings set point at 24-20. Webb then closed out the third set for the Vikings two points later with her 11th kill of the match.
 
"We pushed in that third set. I don't think anyone had any doubts that we were going to win that set. We controlled the whole set, with just a little run of bad points," Seemann said of the third.
 
It ended up a 7-1 run for the Vikings to close out the third set, the momentum of which carried over into the fourth. The Vikings won the first four points of the fourth and never led by fewer than three points the rest of the way.
 
Junior libero Ellie Snook essentially shut the door on the Broncos with three aces in a four-point stretch in the middle of the set. Snook ended up with four aces in the match overall, tying a career high, while senior Zoe McBride matched her with four aces of her own. McBride's final ace made it 21-8 in favor of the Vikings, and Genevieve Florig sealed the match a few points later with a kill.
 
Besides her tough serving, Snook – the Big Sky Libero of the Year last season – also played one of the best sets of her Viking career in the third. The junior already had 11 digs through the opening two sets of the match, but then took her game to another level while finishing with 14 digs in the third set alone. Snook finished with 30 digs in the match, setting a new four-set career-high that came close to matching the four-set school record of 33 that Jalen Pendon-Thomas set in 2008.
 
Setter Ally Wada also stepped up her game after the opening set. Wada had only two assists and three digs in the first, but finished with 33 assists and 17 digs to record her first double-double of the season. Wada, like Snook, played her best in the critical third set, when she finished with 13 assists and eight digs. Wada had another 10 assists in the fourth, when she led the Viking offense to .481 hitting (14-1-27) as they closed out the match.
 
Four Vikings finished with at least eight kills as Wada distributed the ball well after the opening set. Webb led the team with 13 kills on .263 hitting, while McBride and Lewis both finished a dig away from a double-double with 11 kills and nine digs each. Lewis' 11 kills came on .300 hitting, while she also added two blocks. Barto, meanwhile, finished with eight kills on .375 hitting while adding four blocks, three of which were solo.
 
Florig topped Barto with five blocks to lead the Vikings between two solo and three assists. Webb also had two blocks, including a solo block as seven of the Vikings' 11 blocks were solo. The Vikings finished with an 11.0-to-2.0 blocking advantage, as they owned the net after the first set of the match.
 
Serving also emerged as an advantage for the Vikings as the match went on. The Vikings finished with nine aces behind McBride and Snook's four each, and only gave up three aces to the Broncos. Additionally, a day after service errors were an issue for the Vikings against 14th-ranked Oregon, they only had four errors Saturday while the Broncos committed eight.
 
"Each set we played, we got more confident, which led to us serving the way we do every day in training," Seemann said afterwards.
 
The Vikings will now carry momentum into their regular-season home opener Sunday, when they host San Jose State at 12 p.m. San Jose State beat Santa Clara in four sets Friday, and will play No. 14 Oregon, the Vikings' opening opponent, later in the day Saturday.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 6-2-1 all-time against the Broncos with Saturday's win…The Vikings hadn't beaten the Broncos since 1986, however, as the Broncos had won the two most recent matchups, including in 2017 when they won in three sets…Wada was named to the Oregon Invitational All-Tournament Team after the match...Snook hit 1,000-career digs in Saturday's match…Snook passed two players on the all-time digs list during Saturday's match, as she jumped Diana Villalpando (2007-10) and Garyn Schlatter (2010-13) for sixth in the Division I history of the Vikings' program.