Portland State volleyball carries five-match win streak to Montana road trip

Portland State volleyball carries five-match win streak to Montana road trip

by

The Portland State Vikings have won five straight matches, a run that includes their best offensive performance in four years and their best defensive showing in twelve, yet they head into this weekend’s Montana road trip facing two programs that have already beaten them once this season. goviks.com reported that the Vikings (11-12 overall, 7-5 in Big Sky play) travel to Bozeman on Thursday at 6 p.m. PT to face Montana State (15-8, 8-4) and then to Missoula on Saturday at 6 p.m. PT against Montana (7-16, 3-9).

Five wins ago, Portland State was stuck in a 12-match road losing streak. Now they sit only one game out of second place in a crowded Big Sky standings. The contrast could not be sharper: a team that hit .395 against Idaho last Saturday—its highest mark since hitting .471 against the same Vandals on November 10, 2022—and held Idaho to negative-.022 hitting, the first time an opponent has been held below zero since Eastern Washington was held to negative-.036 on October 11, 2014.

Northern Colorado vs. Portland State FULL MATCH Oct 24, 2026 | NCAA Women's Volleyball

A Muddled Middle and the Stakes of November

The Big Sky standings remain tightly packed heading into the final month of the regular season. Montana State, Northern Arizona, and Northern Colorado all sit at 8-4 in conference play, while the Vikings are tied with Weber State and Idaho State for fifth at 7-5. Three teams—Idaho, Eastern Washington, and Montana—lurk at 3-9, just four games behind Portland State. With the Big Sky tournament beginning Monday, November 23, these two road matches will go a long way toward determining where the Vikings finish and whether they can climb into the upper tier.

The Vikings will hope the balance they showed in their 3-0 sweep of Idaho travels with them to Montana. Left sides Alivia Eikenberg and Ashley Repetti combined with middle blockers Reese Biesemeyer and Brenna Coffman for 36 of the team’s 40 kills while hitting a combined .479 between them. Eikenberg and Repetti led the way with 11 kills each while hitting .435 and .417, respectively. Biesemeyer matched her season-high total of nine kills on .615 hitting, while Coffman recorded five kills on .455. Defensively, Jessica Truong led with 11 digs while playing right back alongside libero Paige Stepaniuk in the team’s second straight match exclusively in a 5-1 formation.

Senior setter Ava Blascziek earned Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week honors on Monday after recording a double-double of 37 assists and 14 digs and setting a career high with five kills on .417 hitting.

Montana State Remembers October 10

Montana State presents the immediate test on Thursday. The Bobcats beat Portland State 3-0 in Portland on October 10, outhitting the Vikings .284-to-.149 while Karli Heidemann (14 kills), Elli Fisko (11), and Joelie Spelts (10) all reached double figures. That loss snapped a three-match winning streak for the Vikings over Montana State. For the season, the Bobcats rank third in the Big Sky in both kills (13.0 per set) and assists (11.9), and fourth in hitting percentage (.227). Heidemann and Spelts lead the team with 3.26 and 2.87 kills per set, ranking sixth and 10th in the conference. Spelts leads the conference with a .391 hitting percentage, 32nd nationally.

Montana's Lentz, Kennedy, Ransom-Goelz preview Portland State

On defense, Montana State is sixth in blocks per set (1.97), seventh in opponent hitting percentage (.200), and ninth in digs per set (14.0), while Nicolette Noble ranks sixth in the conference individually with 4.10 digs per set. The Vikings lead the all-time series 51-28-1 and the Big Sky series 30-26, and they have won their last two road matches in Bozeman, including a 3-0 sweep last season and a 3-2 victory in 2024.

Missoula Has Been Unkind

Saturday’s match at Montana carries its own history. The Grizzlies’ biggest strength this season has been their service line, ranking second in the Big Sky with 1.57 aces per set, led by setter Gracie Cagle, who ranks second in the conference and 69th nationally with 0.43 aces per set individually. Cagle also leads an offense that ranks fifth in the conference in both kills (12.2 per set) and assists (11.4). Leading attacker Delaney Russell ranks ninth with 2.89 kills per set.

But Montana ranks last in the Big Sky with 1.48 blocks per set, a weakness the Vikings exploited on October 8 when they out-blocked the Grizzlies 14.0-to-8.0 in a four-set home win. Biesemeyer led with eight blocks in that match. Defensively, Montana ranks fifth in the conference and 50th nationally with 15.4 digs per set, with libero Madeline Sanderson ranking second in the Big Sky and 21st nationally with 4.70 digs per set. Yet the Vikings have not won in Missoula since 2021, when they came back from a 2-1 deficit to win in five sets, and they have lost three straight at Dahlberg Arena, where they hold a 16-16 all-time record. Montana snapped a four-match losing streak with a 3-0 road sweep of Southern Utah last Saturday.

What Comes After the Mountains

After the Montana schools, Portland State returns home to host Idaho State on November 12 and Weber State on November 14 before closing the regular season on the road at Southern Utah on November 18 and Utah Tech on November 20. The Big Sky tournament begins November 23.

Portland State Preview | Fight On Montana Podcast

Head coach Michael Seemann said after his team’s win over Northern Colorado on October 24 that the Vikings were “doing hard things.” During the current streak, that includes snapping the 12-match road losing streak with a 3-0 sweep of Eastern Washington on October 17, beating Northern Arizona 3-2 on October 20 at the end of a three-match, five-day road trip, overcoming two different deficits against Northern Colorado, and having other players step up after leading attacker Maryn Hall went down with an injury. The five-match winning streak matches the Vikings’ longest since winning seven in a row between October 1-27, 2022, and equals a five-match run from September 9-23, 2023.

Whether that resilience extends to Bozeman and Missoula remains the open question as November begins.

Keep reading

Read next