OGDEN, Utah — Weber State out-aced the Portland State volleyball team 15-1 as the Wildcats ran away with a 3-0 (25-17, 25-17, 26-24) victory over the Vikings Thursday at Swenson Gym.
 
The 15 aces for the Wildcats (13-8, 5-4) marked a new season high for a Viking opponent. It was four more than the previous season high, which was 11 over five sets by California Baptist on Sept. 12.
 
"We allowed their servers to influence our offense, which is a shame because we believed we could expose some areas of their defense tonight," Portland State head Michael Seemann said afterwards. "The disappointing piece was not making adjustments until the third set. We have to approach the beginning of matches with more certainty in our skills and authority in carrying them out."
 
To Seemann's point, out of the 15 aces for the Wildcats, 12 of them came in the first two sets. That put the Vikings (9-12, 5-5) in an 0-2 hole for the second straight match, except unlike last Saturday's comeback win over Idaho, Thursday's slow start put the Vikings in the hole against a team playing in its home gym.
 
The Wildcats out-hit the Vikings .353-to-.229 in the opening set – and .269-to-.231 for the match – as the Wildcats led throughout in the opener.
 
The Vikings fell behind 8-2 at the start of the second set, and still trailed 11-4 when they went on an 8-1 run to tie it at 12-all. Middle blocker Reese Biesemeyer had three kills for the Vikings during the run, while Sydney Stenson and Alivia Eikenberg added two each.
 
But three straight aces that were part of seven straight points for the Wildcats later in the set stretched the lead again for Weber State.
 
The Vikings finally took a lead in the third set, using a 5-1 run to lead 15-11. Tyra Schaub had two kills during the run, while Stenson and Biesemeyer had one each. The Wildcats came back to tie it at 18-all, however, and then took a 23-21 lead late in the set. The Vikings won three straight points to earn a set point at 24-23. Brenna Coffman recorded a kill and a block with Biesemeyer during the run. But the Wildcats answered with three straight points of their own – with the middle point being the 15th and final ace of the match – to complete the 3-0 sweep.
 
Eikenberg led the Vikings with 11 kills on .156 hitting. However, she had a nine-match double-double streak snapped as she finished with only four digs.
 
Biesemeyer tied her season high with seven kills on .538 hitting to go with four blocks.
 
The Vikings played two liberos for the first time within Big Sky play, with freshman Jessica Truong joining junior Paige Stepaniuk. Truong responded with a season- and career-high 10 digs.
 
The Vikings can put Thursday's match behind them with a win at Idaho State Saturday. The Vikings face the Bengals at 1 p.m. PT / 2 p.m. MT in what will be their second match against them this season. The Vikings opened the conference season with a 3-0 sweep of Idaho State on Sept. 25.
 
Match Notes:

• The Vikings still lead the all-time series between them and the Vikings, 41-27, despite Thursday's loss.
• Stepaniuk had nine digs Thursday. She needs 13 digs in Saturday's match to reach 1,000 in her Portland State career.
• Setter Ava Blascziek had a seven-match double-double streak snapped with 15 assists and two digs.

Read Full Article