CHENEY, Wash. – It was déjà vu all over again for the Eastern Washington University volleyball team as it topped Portland State in five sets (26-24, 25-19, 14-25, 23-25, 15-12) for the second-straight day at Reese Court. The win marked the first back-to-back victory over Portland State since the 2008 season.
 
Also for the second-straight night, freshman Sage Brustad led the team in kills with 20. The total marks the most kills by an Eagle since Aug. 15, 2018.

The first set saw only one tie and the Eagles never trailed, as they led Portland State 12-8 before the Vikings cut the game to one point, 14-13. The Eagles then used a 6-2 run to pull ahead and led 20-15 and a kill by Brustad gave them a 22-18 advantage and EWU eventually led 24-20 and looked to put the set away. The Vikings then came alive, using a 4-0 run to fight of set point four times to tie the set 24-24. The Eagles stayed collected as an Ashlyn Blotzer block and a kill from Maya McClellan sealed the 26-24 set one win and a 1-0 lead in the match. McClellan would deliver six of her 14 kills in the first set.
 
Neither side was able to take a commanding lead in the second set and the teams were knotted up at 13-13. That's when a 3-0 Eagle run that included both a kill and a block from McKenna Russell and a kill from McClellan gave Eastern a 16-13 advantage. It was all Eastern Washington from there as a 4-0 run that again included two kills from M. Russell and one from Brustad gave the Eagles a 22-15 lead. Portland State would fight off set point once, but Brustad was there with the kill for the 25-19 set two victory and the 2-0 lead in the match. Set two was Eastern's best of the match offensively, hitting .316 with 20 kills.
 
It was all Portland State in set three as the Vikings claimed a 25-14 victory to stay alive.
 
The fourth set saw 10 of the match's 25 total ties. Eastern fell behind 10-5 before a 7-2 spurt moved the set into a 12-12 tie. Portland State had the slight edge, holding on to a 17-15 lead and then 19-17 before it committed three-straight errors to give EWU a 20-19 edge. The set was tied again at 22-22 and 23-23, but the Vikings hung on and found the two final points to win 25-23 and send the match into a fifth set.
 
The Eagles trailed 6-4 when a 4-0 run gave them an 8-6 advantage. Portland State found a kill to cut the lead to one, 8-7, but Ana Paula Zandona was there with back-to-back setter's dumps for the kills to give the Eagles a 10-7 lead. An ace by Puaoolelagi Sao gave Eastern a 14-10 lead and the Vikings threatened and cut it to two, 14-12. Brustad was once again there for the game-winning kill, giving Eastern a 15-12 win in set five and 3-2 victory over the Vikings.
 
COMMENTS FROM HEAD COACH LESLIE FLORES-CLOUD:

On Finding Motivation in the Fifth Set: "Once you have the momentum, there aren't a lot of opportunities to get it back once you've given it away. I thought after set two, we gave the momentum away. My message in set three was whether we win or lose this set, we need to find a way to get that momentum back. We battled really tough in set four and that momentum rolled into set five for us."
 
On Three in Double-Digit Kills: "We moved things around and had Maya McClellan on the outside and Renata Lopez Morales on the right side to switch it up from yesterday. We were looking for more offense from our right side because our outsides are carrying such a load right now, you can see that by Sage's 46 attempts and Maya's 40, so we needed to try and figure out a way to balance that. So tonight you saw us in a 6-2 and trying to get more offense on the right side."
 
On Next Week Against Northern Arizona: "Northern Arizona is a great team, they have really big hitters. Tonight, we adjusted our block a lot so I'd like to go back in and work on that. We need to continue serving tough, at the end of tonight we looked hesitant to serve. Ana Paula Zandona went back and gave us good serves tonight, but we need to be confident in crunch time with serving."
 
On Confidence After Two Five-Set Wins: "We're a young team and we learned a big lesson tonight. We came out with energy which we lacked yesterday, and I'm proud of that. We're a young team and we didn't quite know how to close out set three – we came out like someone was going to give it to us and that doesn't happen in the Big Sky, so a lesson learned tonight from our young team."
 
WIN-LOSS RECORDS: Eastern Washington improves to 3-4 overall with a 2-4 mark in Big Sky Conference play, ending its five-match homestand with three victories. Portland State falls to 1-5 overall and 0-4 in conference action.
 
Today's victory marks the first back-to-back win over the Vikings since the 2008 season
when Eastern won at home on Oct. 10 and then again on the road on Nov. 15. After that, they dropped 12-straight with their next win coming on Oct. 10, 2015. They lost six more after that and snapped the losing streak in a 3-2 win yesterday (Feb. 7).
 
TOP PERFORMANCES: Three Eagles totaled double digit kills, led by Sage Brustad with 20. She hit .239 on the day with nine errors on 46 attempts. She also totaled one service ace, a solo block and nine digs.
 
Maya McClellan followed with 14 kills while Renata Lopez Morales had 12.
 
Lindsey Russell and Ana Paula Zandona split the setting duties, totaling 36 and 16, respectively.
 
Defensively, Puaoolelagi Sao led the team with 21 digs while Catelyn Linke had 18.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: Eastern Washington hit .180 on the night with 68 kills and 31 errors on 205 total attempts. Portland State swung at a .221 clip with 61 kills and 21 errors on 181 attempts.
 
The Eagles had six aces to PSU's five, but were out-blocked 11-to-4. Portland State also had more assists (59-56) and digs (85-79) than the Eagles.
 
UP NEXT: Eastern Washington hits the road for just the second time this season next week at Northern Arizona. The Eagles take on the Lumberjacks on Sunday, Feb. 14 at 1 p.m. Pacific time and then again on Monday, Feb. 15 at 5 p.m. PT. Both matches can be streamed for free on Pluto TV Ch. 1058.