PORTLAND, Ore. — Last time the Portland State volleyball team played Montana State at Viking Pavilion, a five-set loss dropped the Vikings out of a tie for first place in the Big Sky Conference. Thursday night, a 3-1 win (25-15, 19-25, 25-16, 25-21) over the Bobcats – coupled with a Sacramento State win over Montana – moved the Vikings into a tie atop the conference with the Hornets.
 
It's a long way to go still – and the Vikings have a tough match against previously unbeaten Montana Saturday – but it's exactly where the Vikings want to be.
 
The Vikings (9-7, 4-1 Big Sky) put themselves in that position after handling a Jekyll-and-Hyde opening two sets of the match. The Vikings hit .312 with 14 kills in a dominant first set, but then hit in the negative with only six kills in the second set. The third set looked a lot like the first as the Vikings hit .333 with 16 kills in the frame, but then the fourth set started to look a lot like second.
 
Montana State (6-10, 2-2 Big Sky) went up 9-4 at the start of the fourth set, which included a couple of aces – a key part of the Bobcats' win in the second set. The Vikings answered this time, however. Makayla Lewis sparked a 4-0 run that got the Vikings back within one, while the Vikings scored nine points in an 11-point stretch a little later that gave them firm control, up 21-16 late. A kill from Ashleigh Barto that was initially not called eventually closed out the win for the Vikings.
 
"[The Bobcats] are definitely aggressive servers so often times that didn't paid off for them, but many times it did. Some of their aces came when we were climbing back in, especially the second set, and then they'd get an ace and our momentum was stopped," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said of handling the up-and-down nature of the match.
 
"We just kept encouraging them to be patient in transition. If [the Bobcats] were in-system, their pass, set, hit was great. If they went to their middles, they scored frequently, but we knew that if we didn't have a kill swing, we could put pressure on them because they weren't great at coming back and transitioning out of that."
 
The resiliency from the Vikings in the fourth set showed the team's mettle. Montana State was out-killing the Vikings 5-0 at the start of the set, as the Vikings were hitting in the negative once again, just as they had in the second. A kill and an ace from Lewis helped kickstart the Vikings' 4-0 run to get back in the set, while Ashlyn Blotzer added a couple of kills a little later.
 
It wasn't until a big block from Lewis that momentum truly swung for the Vikings in the fourth set. The block, which Lewis combined with Barto on, came as the second point in an eventual 9-2 run for the Vikings that put them in control. The Vikings took their first lead since it was 3-2 in the set on the next point, as Barto returned for a kill.
 
At 17-16 in the fourth, Lewis kickstarted another 4-0 run with kill, then added two more after Parker Webb recorded her fifth ace of the match. It was 21-16 at that point, and the Vikings never let the Bobcats closer than three points the rest of the way.
 
"At the first break [in the fourth set], I was just like, 'this isn't happening. We have to do something different.' We even started a different rotation. I tried to do everything I could to not be in that same position [as the second set]. But I thought our team responded. And it just took a play," Seemann said of the turnaround in the fourth.
 
Lewis finished with five kills on .500 hitting in the fourth set, as she put the finishing touches on one of her best matches of the season to date. Lewis led all players with 16 kills on a season-best .452 hitting while adding 10 digs for her fourth double-double of the year.
 
Lewis also had six kills on only seven swings in the third set, meaning over the final two sets of the match, she combined for 11 kills on only 17 swings for a ridiculous .647 hitting percentage.
 
"She did that yesterday in practice, and she did that today in warmups," Seemann said of Lewis. "Her height and her energy today were phenomenal, and I thought she did a great job of attacking.
 
"It's her decision-making that gets her in trouble, but today, I think she took only one blind stuff-ball swing. That was it. Other than that, they were all really smart attacks."
 
Webb also had a double-double – her fifth in the team's past six matches - with 11 kills and 11 digs. Webb's biggest contribution came from the service line, however. The sixth-year senior tied a career high with five aces in the match, and she had several others that put the Bobcats out of system.
 
Webb had two aces as part of a 10-1 start to the first set for the Vikings, as they went on a 7-0 run on her serve. She added five kills on only six swings in the opening set as she hit .833 in the frame.
 
Blotzer set a season high for the second straight match with nine kills on .333 hitting, while Sophia Meyers added seven kills to go with 10 digs.
 
All told, the Vikings outhit the Bobcats .206-to-.132 Thursday, the eighth time out of the past nine matches that the Vikings have outhit their opponent. The .132 hitting percentage for the Bobcats set a new low for a conference opponent against the Vikings, and marked the eighth time out of the last nine matches that the Vikings have held their opponent to under .200 hitting.
 
The Vikings finished even with the Bobcats, 8-to-8, in blocks, which was a win for the Vikings as the Bobcats came into the match averaging 2.73 blocks per set against conference opponents. The Bobcats out-blocked Northern Colorado 14-to-6 in a win earlier in the season, and have two players in Jordan Radick and Jourdain Klein who rank in the top five of the conference individually for blocks.
 
Barto set a season high with seven blocks to lead the Vikings at the net, while setter Madison Friebel added three block assists.
 
Libero Ellie Snook led the back row of the Vikings' defense with 22 digs, the fourth time out of the Vikings' past six matches that she's topped 20 digs or more. Five different Vikings finished with double-digit digs in the match, the first time the Vikings have done that this season. In addition to Webb (11), Lewis (10) and Meyers (10), Friebel finished in double figures with 12 digs to go with her match-high 41 assists. It's the fourth double-double of the season for Friebel, as well as her second in the team's past three matches.
 
The top-of-the-table battles only continue for the Vikings from here, of course. Another one comes Saturday, as Montana comes to Viking Pavilion for a match at 7 p.m. The Grizzlies lost their first match of the conference season to the Hornets Thursday, but they had been the conference's last unbeaten team entering the night.
 
The Vikings will need more of Dr. Jekyll than Mr. Hyde Saturday, then. But they also know they can dig themselves out of a hole like they did in the fourth set against the Bobcats. It's what they'll need if they hope to stay atop the conference.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 46-25-1 all time against the Bobcats with Thursday's win…Snook was honored with a game ball before the match in commemoration of breaking the career record for digs in the Vikings' match at Northern Arizona last Saturday…With 22 digs Thursday, Snook needs only 16 digs Saturday to pass Anna Gott (2009-12) of Northern Arizona for sixth in Big Sky Conference history.