Griz close regular season with loss at Portland State

Saturday, November 13

Portland, Ore.

8 PM (MT)

Montana

11-15, 6-10Big Sky

Portland State

18-9, 12-4Big Sky

Montana

Portland State

Photo by: Scott Larson/Portland State Athletics

Griz close regular season with loss at Portland State

11/13/2021 11:37:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

By: Montana Sports Information

PORTLAND, Ore. – Montana closed the regular-season on Saturday night, falling to Portland State in straight sets (25-15, 25-16, 25-19). Portland State entered the week tied for first place in the Big Sky Conference standings and will play in next week's tournament as the No. 3 seed. Montana, which prior to this week's road defeats had won five of seven matches, will play as the No. 8 seed and face No. 1 Weber State, which earned the top seed after claiming a co-championship with Northern Colorado.

Montana improved across the board from Thursday's match vs. Sacramento State, but while the Grizzlies hit .158, the Vikings hit .291. The two teams were comparable for digs and blocks, but the biggest difference came at the service line, where the Grizzlies were aced a season-most 13 times.

"I thought Portland State served unbelievably well," head coach Allison Lawrence said. "Their service pressure was really good and their defensive effort was phenomenal."

Montana freshman outside hitter Paige Clark had a bounce-back performance after posting her lowest kill total since switching positions. She led Montana with 12 kills on .360 hitting (12-3-25), including five in the third set.

As good as Clark was, though, Montana didn't have many additional weapons, with no other player recording more than five kills. Senior libero Sarina Moreno led the Griz defensively with 13 digs, in addition to posting both of Montana's service aces.

Montana hung with Portland State early in the first set, holding a handful of one-point leads before Portland State went on a 4-0 run to take control of the set. Montana never got closer than three points after that, losing 25-15, despite hitting .258.

While Montana hit well, the Vikings were red hot, hitting at a .429 clip.

"We were physical, we were aggressive, we were hitting all the points on our scouting report," Lawrence said. "But while we were doing some good things offensively, we couldn't slow them down."

The Grizzlies never led in the second set, with Portland State again pulling away roughly 15 points into the set.

Set 3 was Montana's best performance. The Grizzlies led for a large portion of the frame, including during a spurt in which Clark scored five consecutive Griz points to give Montana a 14-12 advantage.

The two teams would be tied at 14-14, 15-15 and 17-17, before Portland State scored eight of the match's final 10 points to win the match.

"I really liked our team's response defensively as the match went on," Lawrence said. "We had to make some drastic mental shifts to be aggressors on defense and extend rallies."

After Portland State hit .429 in the first set, Montana limited the Vikings to .257 in the second and .213 in the third.

"By the end of the match, our defensive effort, our service pressure and the execution of our block calls was really good," Lawrence said. "I thought we ended the match doing some good things that we can take into next week."

After a 1-6 start to Big Sky play, the Grizzlies went 5-4 over the final nine matches to qualify for the Big Sky tournament for the third time in four seasons. The Grizzlies and host Wildcats will meet Thursday at 7 p.m. in Ogden, Utah.

"We knew this weekend would be tough, so we were trying to find as much growth in our game as we could before the conference tournament," Lawrence said. "Playing two really hot teams on the road, I think, prepared us to play Weber in their home gym. We know the environment we're going to be in next Thursday, and I feel like this weekend put us in the mindset that we need to be in going into the conference tournament."