PORTLAND, Ore. — With the Portland State volleyball team up 25-24 in the second set, Noah Julison – a freshman lineman on the Viking football team – stood up from his seat and ripped off his shirt to fire up the Viking Pavilion crowd. It worked. The Vikings won the next point to level the match at a set apiece, then took the next two sets for a 3-1 (19-25, 26-24, 25-21, 25-23) victory over Weber State Thursday night.
The rowdy home crowd helped the Vikings (8-18, 7-8 Big Sky) shake off a rocky start to beat a Weber State team that came into the night ranked tied for second in the Big Sky standings. The Wildcats (13-13, 10-5) represent the highest-ranked team the Vikings have beaten this season. The victory also marked the Vikings' first over the Wildcats since 2022 and only their fourth in their last 14 matches against them.
"It didn't feel like us until the second set," Portland State head coach
Michael Seemann said of his team's slow start. "We got higher quality touches on our block. The serving got better. We got more confident, got more precise and got the middles more involved as well, which then helped turn the match a little bit.
"The home atmosphere helps a lot. It really does. That's kudos to the fans here tonight because this team is still trying to find its identity as a team. And so, when you have the help of that noise on your side, it helps a lot."
The Vikings needed the crowd to help fire them up after a sluggish first set. The Wildcats scored the first six points of the match and didn't look back from there. They took an early 4-2 lead in the second set, too, when the Vikings finally started to kick things into gear.
Portland State scored 11 of the next 15 points to take a 13-8 lead in the second set.
Carisa Barron,
Devon DeNecochea and
Naomi White all had two kills during the run.
But Weber State responded with four straight points to get back within one at 13-12. The Wildcats would do that repeatedly throughout Thursday night, making sets tight after the Vikings had surged ahead.
Both the second and fourth sets followed that script. The Wildcats erased two set points for the Vikings in the second set, only for the Vikings to respond with kills from White and
Makayla Lewis – sandwiched around Julison going shirtless in the stands, of course – to level the match at a set apiece.
The Wildcats then repeatedly came back in the fourth set as the Vikings were trying to close out the match. The Vikings started hot as Lewis put down two aces and a kill as part of a 6-0 run that made it 8-2 PSU early in the set. The Vikings still led 14-9 when the Wildcats scored four straight before eventually tying the set at 16-all. The Wildcats tied the set again at 21-all after the Vikings had taken a 21-17 lead.
Tight sets have typically gone against the Vikings this season. They entered the match just 4-17 in sets decided by two points. But they had the answers this time, taking the second set, 26-24, and the fourth set, 25-23. Barron finished the fourth set off for the Vikings with kills on the last team's last two points of the match.
"Weber is steady. That is the definition of Weber. They're going to do the same thing while all other teams go up and down. In the past, we've gotten close, but it's always felt desperate. At Montana, we had a couple of set points but they always felt desperate. So, credit to the team for finding ways to play steady in those big moments tonight," Seemann said.
Lewis put together her best match of the season to lead the Vikings. She set a season high with 23 kills – two off her career high – on .340 hitting while adding 14 digs and tying her career high with four aces. Lewis recorded at least four kills in all four sets against the Wildcats, including seven kills in both the second and third sets.
"I think she was very disappointed in her performance last weekend and I know she was looking for some sort of retribution," Seemann said of Lewis. "With her, she has to create kills in a lot of situations. She's not necessarily going to overpower people. And in this case tonight, she did a really good job exposing what we saw in the scouting report, and then on top of that, she created tool swings that went her way."
The Vikings couldn't just rely on Lewis, though. In fact, the Vikings got a little too reliant on Lewis after going up in the fourth set. The Wildcats keyed into that and started to block her as they mounted their comeback.
White responded with back-to-back kills after the Wildcats drew within one at 14-13. She also had a kill out of a timeout after the Wildcats tied it at 16-all, then combined with DeNecochea for a block to make it 18-16 PSU.
DeNecochea then came up clutch later in the set, as she broke the 21-all tie with a kill.
"Devon has grown immensely in the last three weeks as an attacker. And Naomi's been hot all year. To be able to go to them in those situations was huge. Out of every timeout [late in the fourth set], I think we sided out with one of them," Seemann said of DeNecochea and White.
White finished with nine kills on .333 hitting while leading the Vikings at the net with five blocks. DeNecochea added seven kills on .304 hitting and two blocks.
The Vikings also got double-doubles from Barron (15 kills, 14 digs) and freshman
Allison Panter (24 assists, 11 digs) to compliment Lewis, White and DeNecochea. Panter and fellow setter
Ella Hartford (30 assists, four digs) led the Vikings to .244 hitting in the match, as the Vikings hit .250 or better in the final three sets after their clunker of an opener.
No contribution may have been sweeter for the Vikings, though, than seeing senior
Delaney Nicoll return from injury. Nicoll – playing in her first match since Oct. 4 – served for
Reese Biesemeyer with the second set tied at 22-all. She had a dig to set up DeNecochea on the first point of her service run, then got the Vikings to set point after a kill from Lewis.
"She practiced with us yesterday and today she came in for serve-and-pass. There was nothing that she gave us that was like, 'oh, we need to wait.' She came in and you could hear her voice. She is a difference maker. But yeah, how headstrong is that to come in and be willing to do whatever we needed. And that's exactly what we needed. A good strong serve in their weak rotation," Seemann said of the decision to go to Nicoll in that moment.
It was a moment fitting for senior weekend. The Vikings will honor Nicoll and her fellow seniors Saturday ahead of their match against Idaho State at 7 p.m.
Nicoll and her fellow seniors deserve another rowdy crowd like they got Thursday night. So someone tell Julison he's expected back Saturday.
Match Notes: The Vikings improved to 42-25 all-time against the Wildcats with Thursday's win…The Vikings are now 5-2 in Big Sky home matches this season compared to a 2-6 record on the road…The Wildcats tied an opponent season high for blocks against the Vikings with 12.0.
