PORTLAND, Ore. — Resilient.
A day after the Vikings saw their two-time All-Big Sky first-team selection
Makayla Lewis go down with an injury amid a four-set loss to Kansas State, the Portland State volleyball team put on a clinic from the service line in a 3-0 sweep (25-13, 25-18, 25-14) of Cal State Fullerton at Viking Pavilion.
The Vikings recorded 16 aces as a team Saturday, one off the three-set match record of 17 that was originally set in 1995.
"It shows the strength of this team as a team," Portland State head coach
Michael Seemann said of Saturday's response win. "We use that word [team] casually sometimes, but volleyball is the truest test of how strong of a team you are.
"I think we all even mentioned it, we woke up this morning still disappointed, mostly for Mak. Even our serve-and-pass before the match was a little quiet. Maybe a little creepy [
Laughs]. I was worried we were still going to be in that fog, that daze. But when the whistle blew, our team came to play."
Sophia Meyers, who did an elaborate handshake with Lewis right before the match started, led the serving display with six aces individually. The six aces marked the most by a Viking since Cheyne Corrado had seven against Oklahoma on Sept. 12, 2014.
Meyers had four in a row late in the first set that helped set the tone for the match. Her fourth straight ace gave the Vikings a 21-12 lead in the opening set and came in the middle of an 8-0 run that gave the Vikings complete control of the match.
The team's strong serving wasn't just Meyers, though. Six different Vikings recorded at least one ace in the match, while four different players had multiple aces.
Gabby Hollins and
Lauryn Anderson both recorded three aces each, while
Danica Wulf had two late. Additionally,
Paige Stepaniuk and
Ella Hartford added an ace each.
"We have a very strong arsenal of servers. We talked earlier in the preseason about having the ability, as we get deeper in matches, to give teams different looks from the endline. I thought today was a good example of that," Seemann said of the team's serving.
"From the start, I think we put pressure on them immediately. That kind of set the tone."
To put the Vikings' 16 aces in perspective, they only scored 75 points Saturday given their 3-0 sweep. That means just over 20 percent of the team's points came on aces. Basically, the Vikings recorded an ace on every fifth point they scored.
The strong serving led to other advantages for the Vikings. Most importantly, it put the Titans (0-2) in a tough spot offensively, and the Viking defense didn't let them out of it. The Vikings ended up outhitting the Titans .282-to-.055, while holding the Titans to single-digit kills in all three sets. The .055 hitting percentage for the Titans represents the lowest mark by a Viking opponent since University of Portland hit .043 against the Vikings on Sept. 9, 2021.
"I think they were just a little bit disjointed offensively as a result [of our serving]," Seemann said of his team's defensive performance. "I thought we did a pretty good job of converting those into points, which doesn't always happen. When we did get them high balls off the net, we were able to turn those into points, which was great.
"We did a good job of staying patient. You saw them yesterday, they have the potential of putting some heat on it and getting something going. So, I thought whenever they got a little momentum, we did a good job of responding."
Setters Hartford and
VaiLin Tagaloa distributed the ball well offensively, as five different players had at least four kills in a match in which the Vikings only recorded 34 total. Hollins led the team with nine kills, four of which came on only four swings in the third set when she hit a perfect 1.000. Meyers followed with seven kills, five of which came in the second set, while
Delaney Nicoll added six.
The middle blockers – Anderson and
Ashleigh Barto – contributed nine kills between them without committing an attack error. Barto finished with five kills on only eight swings to hit .625, while Anderson totaled four kills on nine swings to hit .444.
"We saw certain things from [the Titans] that we wanted to expose. It wasn't lopsided or one-side of the net in terms of what we were able to do," Seemann said of the team's attack.
And at all times, the Vikings had an ace – quite literally – up their sleeves with their serving. It was a clear delineator within each set. Meyers' four straight aces late in the first set turned what had been a 17-12 PSU lead into a runaway 21-12 advantage. The second set was closer, but back-to-back aces by Hollins gave the Vikings set point as part of a 6-0 PSU run to close out the set.
The third set saw the Vikings record six aces, including two back-to-back from Wulf that gave the Vikings a 21-11 lead. Wulf's aces – coming in her first official action as a Viking – essentially sealed the match, if it wasn't already.
The Vikings can now go for a 2-1 opening weekend tomorrow when they close out the Hotel Vance Rose City Showdown with a match against San Diego State. The Aztecs lost in three sets to Kansas State earlier Saturday, though they beat Cal State Fullerton in four sets the day before. First serve between the Vikings and Aztecs is set for 1:30 p.m.
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 3-1 all-time against the Titans with Saturday's win…Saturday's match was the first meeting between the Vikings and Titans since 2007…The Vikings had six blocks in three sets Saturday after only having five in four sets against Kansas State Friday…Barto led the Vikings at the net with five blocks individually.
