SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — If you're going to break through, you may as well do it against the best team you've faced. That's what the Portland State volleyball team did Thursday afternoon at the Battle By the Bay tournament, sweeping a Long Beach State team, 3-0 (25-23, 26-24, 25-20), at the Warm Memorial at The Sobrato Center.
 
Long Beach State (1-3) was coming off a narrow, five-set loss to then-No. 19 UCLA at their home tournament Monday. The Beach swept Oregon State the day before and even took a set off then-No. 6 Stanford in their season opener last Friday. The Vikings (1-3), meanwhile, were coming off an 0-3 weekend at the Amy Svoboda Memorial Classic in Colorado.
 
And yet, the Vikings outhit (.246-to.197), out-killed (45-to-43), out-aced (4-to-1) and out-dug (54-to-45) the Beach en route to their first win of the season.
 
"My message to the team when we started the match was that we are planning to win. But if we can honestly say that we grew while playing this good team, that we would count it as a huge step forward and ultimately a win. Today, we got both," Portland State head coach Michael Seemann said afterwards.
 
All facets were flowing in the right direction for the Vikings. Thursday's breakthrough didn't come from just one area of the court or one group of players. The Vikings played 13 of their 16 players in the match, with every offensive player recording a kill, every defensive player recording a dig, and every setter recording an assist.
 
"We played our roles well and stayed connected as a team. We got a lot of offensive production from everyone, which lent itself to good distribution," Seemann said.
 
The better distribution was a welcomed change from the opening weekend of the season. Preseason All-Big Sky selection Naomi White averaged only 0.83 kills per set last week in Colorado. That changed from the jump Thursday as White hit 1.000 in the opening set, converting all four of her attacks for kills.
 
The Vikings also got production from the right side of the net as freshman Willow Watson also hit 1.000 with four kills in the opening set. Watson would go on to finish with nine kills on .500 hitting, including several key ones late in sets.
 
The distribution emerged as a theme early in Thursday's match. White recorded back-to-back kills to give the Vikings a 9-6 lead near the start of the first set. The Beach came back to take a 19-17 lead, but the Vikings answered with a 4-0 run that featured another kill from White as well as Sydney Stenson.
 
After the Beach tied the set at 23-all, the Vikings went to Watson for a kill, then closed things out on a block between freshmen Brenna Coffman and Alivia Eikenberg.
 
The better distribution helped open things up for Eikenberg offensively after the opening set. Eikenberg recorded six kills on .500 hitting without committing an error in the second set, including two kills back-to-back in a key stretch in the middle of the set. The Beach ran out to an early lead in the frame, but the Vikings pushed ahead for a 19-14 lead with a 6-1 run that started and finished on kills from Eikenberg
 
The Beach eventually came back to tie the set at 23-all, but again the Vikings had the answers late. Watson helped break the tie with a kill, then did so again after the Beach tied it at 24-all. Eikenberg finished off the set with her sixth kill of the frame.
 
The Beach led again early in the third set, only to see the Vikings storm ahead. This time, it was a 7-1 run for a 16-12 lead that included four kills from redshirt freshman Amber Walker. The Vikings stretched that to a six-point lead at 19-13 and didn't let the Beach any closer than four points down the rest of the way.
 
Eikenberg finished with a match-high 15 kills on .205 hitting to lead the Vikings. She added 10 digs for the first double-double of her collegiate career while also tallying two blocks and an ace. Watson followed with her nine kills, while White, Stenson and Walker all finished with six kills each.
 
Setter Ava Blascziek returned from an injury that held her out the opening weekend of the season to help orchestrate the offense alongside fellow setter Allison Panter. Blascziek recorded 19 assists and six digs in her Viking debut, while Panter added 15 assists and six digs.
 
The defense set up the offense with its best performance of the season to date. The Vikings held Long Beach State under .200 hitting, something they only did once out of three matches last weekend. Additionally, the Vikings' 54 digs marked a new season high despite the match only going three sets.
 
Libero Paige Stepaniuk led all players with 15 digs in the match to go with five assists. She also had back-to-back aces as part of a 4-0 run in the opening set.
 
At the net, White tied for the match high with four blocks, including two solo, while leading the Vikings to 6.0 blocks as a team. Besides White, Coffman and Walker recorded two blocks each.
 
The Vikings will now look to use Thursday's breakthrough as a springboard into the rest of their weekend in the Bay Area. The Vikings play host San Francisco at 6 p.m. Friday, then travel over to Santa Clara University for a neutral-site match against Cal Baptist at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
 
And once you've won one match, you might as well keep going from there.
 
Match Notes:

• The Vikings improved to 3-8 all-time against Long Beach State with Thursday's win. It was the Vikings' first win over the Beach since Aug. 24, 2018.
• The Vikings won the opening set for the first time this season.
• The Vikings won two deuce sets – sets decided by two points – in Thursday's match. That had been a bugaboo last season when the Vikings were just 6-18 in deuce sets.

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