PORTLAND, Ore. — The opening set of the opening match of the season showed the potential of the 2022 Portland State volleyball team. Playing with energy from an engaged crowd at Viking Pavilion, the Vikings erased a late deficit against a talented Long Beach State, winning the first set, 27-25. But the Beach's defense stepped up from there as Long Beach State completed its second comeback win of the day, beating the Vikings 3-1 after a reverse sweep of Oregon State earlier Friday.
 
The Viking offense was humming in the first set, especially late as the Vikings (0-1) came back from 20-17 down to take the early lead in the match. The team did not commit an error from the 15-13 point of the set to when the Vikings first re-took the lead at 23-22. All told, the Vikings finished the set with 16 kills on .244 hitting, with Makayla Lewis leading the way with seven kills on .312 hitting.
 
The switch came in the second and third sets when the Beach's strength at the net started to shape the match. Long Beach State (2-0) only had two blocks in the opening set, but combined for 10.5 blocks in the second and third sets. The Viking offense suffered as a result, as the team hit .093 in the second set, then .000 in the third.
 
"Big picture-wise, I was very pleased with the way we competed. For our first match, at home, I thought all of the components were there as far as the energy we brought and the execution. I was really happy with that first set, getting down by three and figuring out a way to steal, kind of, that first set," head coach Michael Seemann said after the match.
 
"But yeah, if you look at the stats, they're very telling in that we got very little production out of our middles. I can't say that was, at least at the beginning, because of poor serve-receive because I thought we were in-system a lot. We never really got the middles involved, in really good productive ways that allowed them to score. So by the end of the match, you had four hands in front of our pins almost every time. Even in-system."
 
Long Beach State jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the fourth set, but the Vikings found their stroke again after that. A 5-0 run on Parker Webb's serve, gave the Vikings the lead in the set at 8-7. Long Beach State retook control with a 4-0 run of its own, however, and then extended their advantage with a 5-1 run a little later that put them up 19-12. The Beach closed out the match from there.
 
Even with the loss, the fourth set was a return to form for the Viking offense, which hit .194 after being below .100 in the previous two sets. Lewis had six kills in the set, nearly matching her seven from the first set.
 
Still, the Beach's advantage at the net and on the serve proved too much Friday. The Beach out-blocked the Vikings 13.5-to-5.0 in the end, while the Vikings committed 13 service errors compared to just four aces.
 
"Our serving just got tentative because of some errors here and there," Seemann said of the team's serving. "It just got really tentative and they were in-system a lot, especially in sets three and four. And so, they were just able to capitalize on that and really keep us off-balance defensively so that we weren't producing quality swings in transition anymore."
 
Individually, Lewis finished with 20 kills for the match, the third time she's had 20+ kills in a match as a Viking. Lewis added 10 digs for a double-double, her 15th as a Viking and the 20th of her career.
 
Setter Madison Friebel, playing her first counting match as a Viking after transferring from Butler, also finished with a double-double of 30 assists and 14 digs. Two other Viking newcomers nearly joined Lewis and Friebel with double-doubles of their own. Sophia Meyers, a new transfer from Montana, finished with eight kills and 12 digs, while Ella Hartford, a transfer from William Jessup, totaled 13 assists and nine digs.
 
Webb joined Lewis in double figures for kills, as she finished with 10 on .259 hitting while adding six digs.
 
The Vikings have a quick turnaround for their next match, as they host Oregon State at 6 p.m. Saturday on the second day of the Hotel Vance Rose City Showdown. The back-to-back matches should help the Vikings work out some of what plagued them Friday, as they get back in the gym less than 24 hours after the conclusion of their match against the Beach.
 
"The final message for us, just leaving the locker room, was that this was a very fun match to coach and a fun match to play in. I don't think we have anything necessarily to hang our heads on. I think that team exposed a lot and it's very clear what we need to continue to get better at. And luckily, we're not waiting four days or five days to pick up another opponent. We get to go back tomorrow and get to work."
 
Match Notes: The Vikings fell to 2-5 all time against Long Beach State with Friday's loss…Ellie Snook passed Sarah Sirianni (2003-06) for second on the all-time digs list at Portland State, recording 17 Friday to give her a career total of 1,616…Webb needs only two kills Saturday to pass Hannah Long (1996-98) for third on the all-time kills list during the program's Division I era.