PORTLAND, Ore. — There are a few things we wouldn't get in the way of when they get rolling. A runaway semi-truck on the highway is one. The Portland State volleyball team's offense when it's firing like it did Saturday would be another.
 
And we might take the semi-truck before we'd face the Vikings.
 
The Vikings hit a season-high .381 against Montana Saturday night at Viking Pavilion, as they rolled to a 3-0 sweep (25-21, 25-15, 25-11) over the Grizzlies. The three-headed monster at the heart of the Vikings' attack was unstoppable. Parker Webb, Makayla Lewis and Sophia Meyers all finished in double figures for kills, the first time they've done that since the Vikings' Big Sky opener against Weber State on Sept. 22 (also a 3-0 Viking win). Webb led the trio with 12 kills on .417 hitting, while Lewis and Meyers added 11 kills each. Lewis hit .320 while recording her 11 kills, while Meyers hit .429.
 
"That's to Madi's credit [setter Madison Friebel] and also to our first contact being really good," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said of Webb, Lewis and Meyers all finishing in double figures for kills. "All the things came together in terms of our decision making and opportunities and I thought that's why you saw the result we got."
 
Middle blocker Ashleigh Barto nearly gave the Vikings (10-7, 5-1 Big Sky) a fourth player in double figures, as she finished with eight kills on .583 hitting. Fellow middle blocker Ashlyn Blotzer added four kills of her own, while Friebel chipped in a lone kill. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Vikings tied a three-set season high with 47 kills in the match.
 
The Vikings also set a three-set season high with nine aces against the Grizzlies (10-7, 3-2 Big Sky), including one on match point. Lewis recorded the ace on match point, while Meyers led the team with three aces in the match. Webb and libero Ellie Snook followed Meyers with two aces each, while Friebel added another.
 
"I thought we created a lot of really good opportunities. Not just through tough serving and free balls, but I thought we turned a lot of good rips into quality digs and we got kills out of them, which was awesome," Seemann said of how everything fueled the team's offense.
 
The cherry on the top for the Vikings was the team's defense. The Vikings held the Grizzlies to .118 hitting Saturday, a season low for a Viking opponent.
 
It took a second for the Vikings to gain momentum in the match, but once they did, early leads in the second and third sets had them running downhill towards the finish line.
 
The Vikings and Grizzlies traded 5-0 runs at the start of the first set, after which neither team could muster more than a one-point lead. The Vikings finally edged ahead with a 3-0 run behind back-to-back kills from Meyers and Webb and an ace from Friebel. That gave the Vikings a 19-16 lead, and while the Grizzlies would twice close back within one, the Vikings eventually closed things out, 25-21.
 
The second set started close, as well, but the Vikings won 11 of 14 points over a stretch that turned a 5-all tie into a 16-8 Viking lead. The Vikings didn't look back from there, as they outhit the Grizzlies .406-to-.100 in the set.
 
The Vikings put their foot down early in the third set. They led 8-3 at the start of the frame, then used a 6-0 run to take all drama out of the match, up 16-5. The early lead saw the Vikings roll to a .520 hitting percentage in the third set, only the second time this season that they've topped .500 in a set.
 
"We were really just trying to emphasize everyone serving more than once," Seemann said of the team's runs at the beginning of the second and third sets. "I felt like our decision making on defense got a little easier when we went on those runs. They stayed really steady in the first set and they slowly pulled away."
 
Friebel finished a dig away from a double-double with 36 assists and nine digs. Seven of Friebel's nine digs came in the first set alone, as she was the focus of the Montana attackers early, but handled that well. Meyers also finished a dig away from a double-double with nine digs to go with her 11 kills.
 
Webb needed two more digs to get to her double-double, as she finished with eight. Webb had recorded five double-doubles in the Vikings' previous six matches, but she won't begrudge missing one Saturday due to how quickly the Vikings shut the door on the Grizzlies.
 
The match was done in only 84 minutes, in fact, hardly long enough for a movie. That's fitting in a way, though, as the match felt like more of a super-sized highlight reel once the Vikings got rolling.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 56-18 all time against the Grizzlies with Saturday's win…Four of the Vikings' last eight wins have been sweeps, and the Vikings have won eight of their 10 matches during that stretch…The Vikings recorded at least 15 kills in all three sets Saturday, while they held Montana to single figures in all three sets.