PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland State volleyball team improved in its second meeting with defending Big Sky regular-season champ Sacramento State Friday, but not enough to get a win as the Hornets topped the Vikings, 3-1 (25-19, 25-23, 23-25, 25-14) at Viking Pavilion.
 
It wasn't the end result the Vikings (4-13, 3-3) wanted, but the comparisons from two weeks ago show the growth for the team. Two weeks ago, when the Hornets (12-7, 5-1) swept the Vikings in Sacramento, they outhit the Vikings .421-to-.105. The .421 hitting percentage was the most by a Viking opponent since 2018.
 
Friday, the Vikings held the Hornets to .255 hitting. The Hornets still held a hefty margin over the Vikings (.255-to-.115), but it was a much better showing than the teams' last match.
 
The better defensive numbers were reflected in how the Vikings out-blocked the Hornets (8.0-to-6.0) and out-aced them (10-to-7). The Hornets came into the match leading the Big Sky Conference and ranked 13th nationally with 2.00 aces per set. And yet the Vikings held them to below that average while setting a season high with 10 aces of their own.
 
Five different players contributed to those 10 aces. Freshman Allison Panter led the way with a career-high three aces, while Ella Hartford, Carisa Barron and Reese Biesemeyer added two each.
 
"Serving is the beginning of defense," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said after the match. "We're doing that better now. But we're not closing a loop as well as we should be. And that loops closes when we're running down the tips, running down the shots because they're out of system because of our good and tough serving. Even the non-aces where they're scrambling and have arms on the ball, not a set, that's when we have to turn those into better looks and points."
 
All three of Panter's aces came in the third set, while five of the Vikings' 10 aces came in that frame. It's no surprise, then, that the Vikings won that set, 25-23.
 
Serving got them there. Panter recorded aces on either side of a Sacramento timeout that gave the Vikings a 19-13 lead. The Hornets came all the way back to take a 23-22 lead, but the Vikings edged ahead again, 24-23, when Hartford followed a Sacramento State error with her second ace of the match. Carisa Barron then ended the set with a kill off the Sacramento State block on the next point.
 
The Hornets snuffed out any chance of a comeback early in the fourth set, however. They sprinted out to a 9-3 lead and held at least a five-point lead the rest of the way.
 
Despite the team's improvements from match-to-match against the Hornets, the Vikings couldn't match the Hornets in shot making. The Hornets out-killed the Vikings in every set Friday, finishing with a 57-to-38 advantage over the whole match.
 
The Vikings didn't get the even distribution offensively that could have helped them stay closer. While Barron and Makayla Lewis went off – combing for 27 kills between them – no other player had more than four kills.
 
Seemann particularly regretted that his team didn't involve middle blockers Naomi White and Biesemeyer sooner. White – who came into the match hitting a conference-best .451 in Big Sky matches – only had two attempts through the first two sets of the match. The Vikings involved her more over the final two sets, but she still only finished with four kills on 11 attempts. Biesemeyer, who came into the match hitting .361 across all matches, also finished with four kills on 12 attempts.
 
"We felt like we really had a good advantage with our middles," Seemann said of the team's plans to involve the middles more. "It wasn't a passing issue because I felt like we did a pretty good job staying balanced there."
 
The Vikings were also dealing with adversity on the right side. Delaney Nicoll missed her third straight match with a foot injury. Her absence came after the Vikings seemed to break through with her on the right side, as she recorded 13 kills on .345 hitting in the Vikings' win over Montana.
 
Seemann praised Sydney Stenson and Devon DeNecochea, who he both said had "moments" while stepping into Nicoll's role. But the Vikings still only got four kills combined from them – all from Stenson – which wasn't enough to open things up for the Vikings offensively.
 
"The set that we won, I used the whole roster," Seemann said of going deeper to his bench. "That tells me that we have the ability to adjust and those kids have the ability to come off the bench and contribute in a positive way.
 
"At this point of the season, especially against good teams, it's tough to find the same offensive flow as before. I think both right sides had bright spots. There were just moments. It wasn't as consistent as we needed it to be."
 
Lewis and Barron were steadier for the Vikings on the left. Lewis, on the night she was honored for reaching 1,000-career kills, finished with a team-high 15 against the Hornets. That's her second-highest total of the season, trailing only her 16 kills in the Vikings' four-set win over Montana on Sept. 28.
 
Barron also went into double figures for the fifth time in the Vikings' six Big Sky matches. She finished with 12 kills to go with 17 digs, giving the senior transfer her 28th career double-double and her second as a Viking.
 
White led the Vikings at the net, recording five total blocks. Biesemeyer added three, while Barron and DeNecochea added two each.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings fell to 28-53 all-time against the Hornets with Friday's loss…Lewis moved up to eighth all-time in career kills during Portland State's Division I history, passing Marija Vojnovic (2006-09)…The Vikings won only their second deuce set of the season in the third set. They're now 2-12 in two-point sets this season, including dropping the second set by two points, 25-23, Friday.
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