Box Score FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (October 26, 2023) – The Northern Arizona volleyball team dropped its fourth consecutive match on Thursday night at Rolle Activity Center to Portland State in four sets, 16-25, 27-25, 22-25, 18-25.
Despite the defeat on the scoreboard, the Lumberjacks' .242 hitting percentage over the course of the four sets was its best offensive performance in a losing effort this season.
"I thought that our team played well and did a lot of really good things tonight," head coach Ken Murphy said. "I loved the way that the setters distributed the offense today, Keira [Hall] and Karya [Suvarioglu] did a really nice job of getting the ball to our outside hitters."
For the sixth time this season, the setting tandem of Hall and Suvarioglu both finished with 20-plus assists. Hall closed the night with 23, and Suvarioglu had one more, putting up a 24-assist performance.
Redshirt sophomore Jordan Cherniss, who has been filling in as an outsider hitter in the absence of Kylie Moran, had the best offensive match of her career, finishing with a career-best 20 kills and added nine digs to go along with that.
Cherniss was second in digs only behind senior Millie O'Ketter's 25 against the Vikings, the sixth time that O'Ketter has scooped up over 20 in a match this season.
Another Lumberjack who put up her best offensive output on the day was Neche Newton, who struck a season-high 10 kills on 19 swings and hit over .400 for a second time this year when she has had at least 10 attempts.
Portland State and Northern Arizona were going back and forth throughout the opening set of play, with the teams squared at 12 before a 3-0 Portland State run led into the media timeout.
The Vikings would double that earlier 3-0 run and would take six consecutive points after leading 16-14 to put the opening set out of reach. PSU would hit .417 in the opening stanza on the strength of 18 kills on 36 attempts, hitting just three errors in the process.
In a similar fashion to the first set, the two teams would continue trading leads and tie scores, with the second set seeing 19 total tied scores and nine lead changes between the two.
It appeared that Portland State was heading towards a two-set lead at the break, forcing an NAU timeout with the Lumberjacks trailing 19-17. However, Northern Arizona would continue to punch back and stay alive in the set, playing three different points where the Vikings were two away from closing the set.
Three of the final four points in set two saw a pair of kills from Neche Newton and a block by Kendall Robertson and Savannah Bloom to even the match at the break.
The momentum continued with Northern Arizona through the first 11 points of the third set, with the home team winning seven of them. Portland State would take seven of the next 10 points to force an early set timeout from Murphy.
NAU kept the third set close and had six points following the first NAU timeout that would see them only trail by one. But the Vikings' offensive firepower on the night would continue, seeing the visitors hit 15 kills for a .306 percentage.
More of the same would follow in the fourth set, with Portland State increasing their percentage to .346 over the final set of play. Altogether, PSU hit at a whopping .319 clip over the four sets, with 58 total kills to just 14 errors on 138 attempts.
The Lumberjacks will play the second match of this quick two-match home swing on Saturday night when they will face off with the first-place Sacramento State Hornets at 6:30 p.m. The match will air live on ESPN+.
"There are plenty of similarities between these two teams," Murphy said. "I do like the match-up with Sacramento State. They are very talented, especially with their ball handling and defense. I think it is a good match-up for us, and we have to focus on playing a little bit of a better match."
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