Complete Season Recap (PDF)

PORTLAND, Ore. — As Viking Pavilion goes quiet for the holiday break, it almost feels like an exhale for the Portland State volleyball team. The end of November and beginning of December featured the program's first run to the Big Sky championship match since 2013, as well as its second straight national postseason appearance as the Vikings hosted a first-round match in the National Invitational Volleyball Championship (NIVC) against Santa Clara.
 
The late-season run came on top of a record-setting regular season for the Vikings that featured the Vikings':
 

• Best start to Big Sky play since 2012 (9-1)
• Highest finish within the conference standings since 2013 (2nd)
• First win over Oregon State since 1990
• All-time digs record for Ellie Snook
• All-time points record for Parker Webb

 
Whew.
 
No wonder the Vikings need to catch their breath.
 
But the success of the Vikings' 2022 season really goes back to 2021. The Vikings returned five starters off their 2021 team that won 20 matches for the first time since 2017, and made the national postseason for the first time since 2010. That experience helped the Vikings enter 2022 a confident and experienced group that featured seven seniors on a 17-player roster.
 
"I really thought that helped feed into what we were about this year. Not necessarily even as a post-season experience, but also just feeding into the beginning of the year," head coach Michael Seemann said of how the end of 2021 fed into 2022. "Like the match against Oregon State [on Aug. 27], just our ability to believe in ourselves and to allow ourselves to play free but also have that steadiness. That, to me, really contributed to – especially at the beginning of the year – our ability to play a little bit bigger than ourselves and allow our team to really get strong."
 
There were still new additions to work into the mix. The Vikings had to replace 2021 setter Ally Wada, as well as find another starting middle blocker opposite Ashleigh Barto. They found those pieces in incoming transfers Madison Friebel and Ashlyn Blotzer, while Sophia Meyers joined the Vikings, too, on the outside.
 
Those additions would prove critical as all three would become starters.
 
"There were a lot of unknowns going in. Even with all the training and practicing going into it, ultimately, when that whistle blows and there's another opponent and it counts, I think there's still things that you don't know about your team at that point, especially the new players," Seemann said of mixing in the transfers.
 
In the end, Friebel and Meyers joined with Webb and Makayla Lewis to lead one of the most potent offenses in program history. With Friebel pulling the strings at setter, the Vikings led the Big Sky in both kills per set (14.2) and assists per set (13.4) during the conference season. They also finished the season hitting .227, their best mark since 2017 as well as the second-best mark ever during the program's Division I era.
 
"I think it took a while, over winter and spring, but [Madi's] ability to connect with Parker with that precise tempo of a set…it's difficult, but I thought she did a really good job of doing that. Even as the season went on, she did a good job of locating better and putting our hitters in good situations," Seemann said of Friebel. "Ultimately, it was her decision-making that had to continue to improve and I thought she did that as well."
 
Friebel's distribution meant that three players averaged more than 3.00 kills per set for the first time since 2007. Those three were, of course, Lewis (3.51 k/s), Meyers (3.07) and Webb (3.03), who all had moments for the Vikings this season.
 
"One of the things that we really emphasized with Madi in particular, was her ability to locate the ball when she's at eight to ten, twelve feet off the net. And that's where the three-headed monster came in," Seemann said of the team's depth in the attack. "I thought she did a really good job of being able to not only locate the ball from that position but do it with a certain amount of tempo that still caused a little bit of a weaker defense or block because of that. That's a very difficult thing to do, but she also did a really good job."
 
Meyers took the lead early in the season. She had a double-double of 12 kills on .281 hitting to go with 13 digs in the Vikings' win over Oregon State. Her biggest match of the season came against Seattle U to close out non-conference play when she recorded a career-high 23 kills on .400 hitting to go with 13 digs. In the Vikings' 9-1 start to Big Sky play, Meyers had a double-double in five of the 10 matches while she was either a kill or a dig away from a double-double in three of the other five.
 
Lewis and Webb starred in Big Sky play for the Vikings. Webb ranked third in the conference with 3.60 kills per set in Big Sky matches, while Lewis stood right behind her at fourth with 3.58 kills per set. Webb recorded 10+ kills in 15 of the team's 16 Big Sky matches, and the only match in which she didn't was the Vikings' 66-minute sweep of Idaho State on Oct. 13.
 
"I think the experience that Parker had just almost became a safety blanket, especially in the beginning for Madi. When everything was going wrong, she was able to just be like, 'I don't know what to do, I'm going to give it to Parker, and get us out of the jam.' [Laughs]. And I think Makayla did that, too," Seemann said of the pair.
 
"All good teams, all the way up to the highest level, have what we sometimes call an eraser. That means when you're in a disaster on your side, you send a high ball to the outside, and that person has the ability to put that ball away. That's what you want. You don't want to rely on that too much, but you certainly want that until your team gets into a better rhythm and has better touches on first contact."
 
Lewis was at her best at the Big Sky tournament. She led the Vikings in kills in all three matches while averaging 4.54 kills per set on .265 hitting at the tournament and adding 2.23 digs and 0.62 blocks per set. Lewis recorded double-doubles in two of the team's three matches, and was a dig away from a third. She led all players with 24 kills on .319 hitting in the championship match against Northern Colorado, including 10 kills in the third set alone as the Vikings took a 2-1 lead in the match.
 
"I thought Mak did a really good job of not only leading with what she did, with her impressive defense and also her swings, but she also became somebody who really, really led in practice a lot, too," Seemann said of Lewis. "She set a standard, Parker set a standard, Sophia set a standard that there wasn't going to be kind of easy days in practice where we're just kind of cruising. We all know that if we can do that as much as possible that it's not a huge adjustment when game day comes because it's just continuing what we've been doing."
 
Raising the standard at practices was one of Seemann's goals at the beginning of the year. Seemann wanted to foster a deep, competitive gym that could prepare the team for the battles they'd face within Big Sky play.
 
"I really value and really like those teams and programs that are able to go down their depth and have those kids perform at the end of the year, even those kids who haven't seen a lot of playing time," Seemann said of fostering the team's depth.
 
"I thought that overall, what we did in the practice gym, the way we designed drills, some of the patterns that we got into, which I think sometimes can feel a little bit monotonous, contributed to our ability to be machine-like and treat each point with equal value."
 
That certainly helped in the Vikings' run at the Big Sky tournament. If nothing else, that experience helped the Vikings refocus after a tough stretch for the team just before the start of the tournament. They lost four of five towards the end of the season to drop from the top spot in the conference standings into a tie for third entering their regular-season finale at Sacramento State.
 
It's not a stretch Seemann would have wished for his team, but it did offer the Vikings a chance to re-set.
 
"It's a tough lesson because you don't want to take losses with that lesson, but sometimes that's the way it has to be. But I felt like, to some degree, that grounded us and allowed us to expose the things that we really needed to get better at," Seemann said.
 
"I just think there was a switch to some degree after those losses. Just a feeling of, 'we're stopping it here. No more.'"
 
The turning point seemed to be the Vikings' road match at Sacramento State to end the regular season. The Hornets' home gym – nicknamed The Nest – has been a house of horrors for the Vikings in the past. The Vikings went into this season's match having won only five times before at The Nest. And yet, Seemann said he felt it played to his team's favor to end their regular season in Sacramento.
 
"There was very little doubt in mind that if we were going to lose to SAC, they were going to have to play outstanding," Seemann said of the match. "You could just feel it. Even Ruben [Volta, Sacramento State's head coach] said afterwards, 'man, you guys just never stopped getting after it.' It showed. The effort was there, the execution was there."
 
In the end, the match was a picture-perfect example of how Seemann said the team approached each point with equal value. The Vikings fell behind 5-0 in the fifth set against the Hornets, but then won 10 of their next 12 points and 15 of the final 19 to complete a 3-2 win over the Hornets.
 
Friebel led the Viking offense to .286 hitting in the match, the best mark of any Big Sky team against the Hornets. Sacramento State came into the match holding opponents to just .154 hitting – giving them the Big Sky lead in the category – and yet the Vikings nearly doubled that in their match against them. Friebel set a career high with 60 assists while consistently finding Webb and Lewis, both of whom finished with 20+ kills. Webb recorded 23 kills on .400 hitting to go with 13 digs, while Lewis finished with 22 kills on .288 hitting to go with 14 digs.
 
Five days after that match, the Vikings opened the Big Sky tournament with a quarterfinal matchup against Eastern Washington. It was a chance at redemption for the Vikings, after the Eagles beat the Vikings on Senior Day at Viking Pavilion just 11 days earlier. The Eagles hit .219 against the Vikings in that win, but they wouldn't get the same looks at the tournament. The Viking defense stepped up, holding the Eagles to just .108 hitting – half of what they hit before – as the Vikings successfully avenged their loss on Senior Day.
 
That was a recurring theme throughout the 2022 season for the Vikings. Even more important than the team's offensive performance to wins or losses was their defensive performance. The Vikings were 18-2 in 2022 when holding opponents to under .200 hitting, but 0-11 when they didn't. The two matches against the Eagles fell exactly along those lines.
 
"The ones that we were able to get stuff blocks and get points off of blocks early, were the ones that we really dominated or controlled most of that match," Seemann said of the team's defensive efforts throughout the season. "Of course, each set is kind of like that too, but even overall as a match, when we were able to influence hitters early, we had a really good opportunity to kind of smother them. Whether it was continuing to block or play defense, we were causing tips now and giving ourselves easier shots that we were able to turn into kills."
 
At the Big Sky tournament, the team's block was at its best all season. The Vikings averaged 2.15 blocks per set over their three matches at the tournament – a significant jump over their average through the regular season, which was just 1.66 blocks per set.
 
Both Barto and Blozter averaged at least 1.00 blocks per set at the tournament. Barto set a season high with eight blocks in the Vikings' quarterfinal win over Eastern Washington while also recording 11 kills in the match.
 
Blotzer, meanwhile, took the lead in the Vikings' semifinal win over Montana State. That win avenged another earlier loss for the Vikings, as the Bobcats fought off a match point to beat the Vikings in five sets on the road on Nov. 5. Again, that match was just under three weeks before the teams faced each other again at the tournament, and yet the Vikings mustered a renewed performance at the tournament. Blotzer set a season high with seven blocks in the match, while the Vikings held the Bobcats to .151 hitting.
 
The defense had its hands full against a deep Northern Colorado team in the championship match, however. The Bears hit .317 against the Vikings and ultimately came back from their 2-1 deficit to beat the Vikings in five sets.
 
Still, the appearance in the championship match, the team's first since 2013, will ultimately help lead the Vikings into next season. It's exactly what the 2021 season did for the Vikings in 2022. The success of the fall informs the work the Vikings do in the winter and spring. And in 2023, that would mean another run at a Big Sky title.
 
"I think that taste of being in the finals, with those people who played big roles coming back and being in the tournament and having been in the finals, I think that's going to pay off immensely," Seemann said. "Obviously, it's a long season and we're not going to talk about the tournament on day one, but if we allow ourselves to do a good enough job and get in that position, there will be four or five starters who have been there."
 
It's why the Vikings are catching their breath right now as 2022 wraps up.
 
The 2023 season starts in January.