PORTLAND, Ore. — The free beer starts Saturday at the Portland State football game, but the party started Friday night at Viking Pavilion, as the Portland State volleyball team put together its best performance of the season while sweeping North Dakota State, 3-0 (25-14, 25-19, 25-21), to open the Les Schwab Rose City Showdown.
 
The Vikings (4-5) hit a seasonal-best .312 against the Bison (6-4), who came into the match having won four straight, including a 3-1 win last weekend over Cal out of the Pac-12 Conference. Besides the offense, the Viking defense was on fire, recording 10 blocks while holding NDSU to negative hitting in the first set and .142 overall for the match.
 
"I don't think we let them get into any kind of rhythm, which was a tribute to our serving and our defense, for sure," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said afterwards. "Ally [Wada, setter] is distributing the ball really well right now. I thought the serve receive was really balanced, too, and I thought we had more good pass percentage than last weekend."
 
Blocking helped the Vikings set the tone early. Five of the Vikings' 10 blocks in the match came in the first set, while three of those came on consecutive points that gave the Vikings a 24-14 lead. Zoe McBride made herself into a brick wall while emphatically stuffing NDSU's Michelle Glover to start the run. Genevieve Florig then stuffed Glover for her own solo block on the next point, while Florig and McBride combined to stuff NDSU's Alexandria Hicks after that.
 
"The blocking in the first set a tone and was a huge piece for us tonight. But also getting offensive production out of our middles was huge, and obviously, it allows our pins to have a little bit more breathing room, too," Seemann said of the team's middle blockers and their production Friday.
 
Florig ended with a match-high five blocks, two of which came on solo blocks. McBride, Ashleigh Barto and Parker Webb all added three blocks of their own, while Makayla Lewis and Ally Wada also had a block each in the match.
 
McBride's play mirrored the Vikings' Friday, as just as the team put together its best match of the season, so did McBride. Besides her three blocks, McBride finished with 11 kills on .257 hitting to go with 12 digs to record her first double-double of the season.
 
It was a far cry from the McBride Viking fans saw at last weekend's PDX Classic, where she finished with only one kill on 33 attempts.
 
"Zoe's turnaround is a tribute to what she did in practice in the week leading up to tonight," Seemann said of McBride. "She saw what her role was last weekend and did not accept that role. And I thought she, especially the last two practices, had really good attacking practices as well as good passing practices. And it paid off. She got confident from that, and was able to bring that into this match tonight.
 
Five of McBride's 11 kills came in the third set, which was by far the tightest set of the match. The Bison led 20-17 late, but the Vikings won eight of the final nine points to close out their 3-0 sweep. Barto opened the run with a kill, while Webb followed with one from the right side that was initially called out but was reversed after a challenge from Seemann.
 
McBride then aced the Bison to level the score at 20-20, while Lewis and Barto combined for a block to give the Vikings the lead back at 21-20. NDSU blocked Barto to level it again, but that was the last point they'd score as the Vikings closed on a 4-0 run. It was McBride, fittingly, who recorded the last two kills of the match, putting her into double figures for kills in the match.
 
Webb led the Vikings in the first two sets, as she had 12 kills after the opening two frames of the match. Webb recorded seven kills on .545 hitting in the second set alone, and hit .556 with five kills on nine attempts in the first set.
 
Webb finished with 14 kills on a seasonal-best .520 hitting, while also adding five digs and three blocks.
 
The Vikings' strong offensive performance continues a resurgence for the Vikings' attackers that begin last weekend at the PDX Classic. The Vikings came into last weekend hitting just .084 as a team, but topped .240 in all three of their matches. Friday's match topped those three, as the Vikings hit over .300 for the first time since their opening match of the 2019 season.
 
Wada deserves much of the credit for the offensive resurgence, as she's averaged over 10 assists per set since the start of last weekend. Wada finished with 31 assists to go with seven digs and four kills against the Bison, continuing the hot run of play she started at the PDX Classic. Wada went into last weekend averaging only 6.88 assists per set, but has averaged 10.4 assists per set in the Vikings' four matches since then, including a career-high 62 in the Vikings' five-set win over Grand Canyon last Friday.
 
Wada's distribution in Friday's win over the Bison also saw four Vikings total at least six kills despite the match only going to three sets. Besides Webb and McBride, Barto finished with seven kills – her second-highest total of the season so far – while Lewis added six.
 
Lewis, who made the PDX Classic All-Tournament Team last weekend alongside Webb, chipped in 11 digs to go with her six kills. Lewis, McBride and libero Ellie Snook were the three Vikings in double-figures for digs, with Snook leading the three with 13.
 
The Vikings face the Bison again Saturday, as the teams essentially repeat their schedule from Friday while facing off at 7 p.m. at Viking Pavilion. The Bison will likely look like a different team Saturday, as they try to exact some revenge on the Vikings.
 
But hey, with Portland State head football coach Bruce Barnum picking up the tab for Viking fans out in Hillsboro, there's no reason to not make this a multi-day party.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 9-4 all-time against the Bison with Friday's win…Friday's match was the first time the schools have played each other since 2006, which the Vikings also won in three sets…Snook passed Nicole Bateham (2008-11) for fifth on the all-time digs list during the Vikings' Division I era…Snook now has 1,148 digs in her career…The next name ahead of Snook in the career rankings is Jessica Brodie (2003-06) at 1,441.