PORTLAND, Ore. — The karmic reward the Portland State volleyball team earned this weekend will be massive. It has to be after a heartbreaking, five-set loss (25-23, 22-25, 12-25, 25-23, 15-12) to Nevada Sunday to close out the Rose City Showdown presented by Hotel Vance.
 
The Vikings (0-3) deserved better after rolling through three and a half sets. They won the last four points of the second set to level the match, then played their best set of the season to date in the third to go up two sets to one. In the fourth, a 7-0 run that featured five straight kills for Taylor Hunter saw them go up 10-5.
 
But things turned a few points later when Hunter – who had 13 kills on .478 hitting to that point of the match – went down with an injury. The Vikings still fought, but the Wolf Pack (2-1) used a late run to win the fourth, then took control of the fifth with a 4-0 run in the middle of the set.
 
"We served them really, really well," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said, noting his team's nine aces in the match. "They couldn't use anyone but their left-side, but their left-side got them out of every single jam.
 
"The trajectory of this team is still good as we got better match-to-match-to-match [this weekend]. But we still need to get there."
 
It's not only Hunter's injury where the Vikings earned some karmic return. It's also the improvements that Seemann noted that make the Vikings deserving of a breakthrough.
 
On Sunday, it was the defense that stepped up, recording season bests for opposing hitting percentage (.181), digs (78) and blocks (13.0). The totals for digs and blocks were more than the Vikings had in their first two matches combined. Again, Hunter played a huge role in that. She led the Vikings with seven blocks between two solo and five assists. Four other Vikings had at least three blocks between Naomi White, Reese Biesemeyer, Delaney Nicoll and Ella Hartford.
 
The Vikings had already shown better blocking Saturday, when they out-blocked Cal 9.0-to-7.0. Sunday's most notable improvement was on the back row. Cal, after all, still hit .337 Saturday despite the Vikings' improvements at the net. That was in part because the Vikings only had 28 digs Saturday. But on Sunday, the Vikings had Paige Stepaniuk and Carisa Barron record 21 digs each, while Nicoll added 18.
 
Offensively, the Vikings continued to show they're at their best when they play through the middle. Besides Hunter, White posted a team-high 15 kills on .519 hitting, both career highs. The 28 kills combined from Hunter and White were eight more than the highest total the Vikings got out of their middle blockers last season (20, vs. Montana State, 10/19/23).
 
"That can ony help us in the future," Seemann said of the production from his team's middles. "We have to get better as pins in decision-making, but also in our sets. We didn't put our hitters in good situations, then on top of that, hitters didn't always make the best decisions in bad situations, which is what you need. But that comes with confidence, so I think that will continue to grow."
 
The efficiency from the middles helped open things up for Makayla Lewis who recorded a double-double with 14 kills and 11 digs. The third set was a microcosm of that dynamic as Lewis, White and Hunter combined for 12 of the team's 14 kills in the set. Lewis had six kills on 10 swings, while White and Hunter added three kills each on .600 and .429 hitting, respectively. The Vikings hit .433 as a team in the set, their best hitting percentage in any set this season.
 
Seemann noted the Vikings shifted away from that even distribution once Hunter went down. The Vikings led 17-11 in the fourth set even after Hunter exited, but Nevada tightened up on the Vikings' pin hitters after that, recording five blocks over the final part of the set to come back and win, 25-23.
 
A 3-0 run early in the fifth set saw the Vikings go up 7-6. Biesemeyer added a solo block two points later to give the Vikings an 8-7 lead as the teams changed ends. Nevada responded with four in a row, however, and then held at least a two-point advantage the rest of the way.
 
The Vikings will now hope to get their breakthrough on the road next weekend. They head south for the San Diego State Invitational where they'll play Tulane Thursday at 3 p.m., San Diego State Friday at 6 p.m., and DePaul Saturday at 12 p.m.
 
And if anyone is paying attention, the Vikings deserve a win or two down there. Or even three. It'd only make karmic sense.
 
Match Notes: The Vikings still lead the all-time series between them and Nevada, 6-3, despite Sunday's loss…Lewis recorded her 1,000-career kill with her first of the match…Lewis now ranks 10th all-time by herself in career double-doubles at Portland State with her 27th Sunday…Barron's 21 digs was a career high…Hartford recorded a career-high 48 assists…Nicoll led the Vikings with four aces Sunday, tying her career high.
  Read Full Article