PORTLAND – The Gonzaga volleyball team defeated Portland in four sets (23-25, 25-21, 26-24, 25-11) Sunday afternoon inside the Chiles Center in Portland, Ore., in the 2021 spring season finale. Gonzaga concludes the year with a 7-11 record, all in West Coast Conference play.
 
"We executed on all fronts, and we just enjoyed competing with each other one last time," Head Coach Diane Nelson said.
 
Senior outside hitter Chapin Gray led the Zags in her final match as a Bulldog, finishing with a team-high 14 kills hitting .483 to go along with two digs and two blocks. Sarah Penner and Zoe Thiros each added nine kills apiece while Tia Andaya led the Zags with a match-high 36 assists to go along with eight digs and three blocks.
 
As a squad, Gonzaga finished with 48 kills hitting .268 for the match to go along with 42 assists, 73 digs, 14.0 blocks and three service aces. Portland (2-14, 2-14 WCC) put down 50 kills hitting .103 with 46 assists, 72 digs, 5.0 blocks and four service aces.
 
After dropping the first set 25-23, Gonzaga battled back in the second, hitting .286 to overcome the early deficit and tie the set 14-all. Back-to-back Pilot attacking errors gave GU the slight 16-14 lead. Three additional errors on part of Portland coupled with a kill from Alyssa Hughes put GU up by five late in the set (21-16). The Zags capitalized on the advantage, continuing on for the 25-21 second-set win.
 
The third set was back-and-forth as neither team led by more than three points. Gonzaga capitalized on multiple Pilot errors, including eight hitting errors, two service errors, three ball-handling errors and one reception error. Despite the 14 errors from Portland, Gonzaga was unable to pull away, and a kill from Portland's Mia Wesley tied the set 24-all to save the set point. GU's Grace Ehler stepped up with a big kill to give GU the second set point of the third, and Gonzaga forced yet another attacking error on the Pilots to close the set 26-24.
 
In the fourth set, Gonzaga set the tone early, jumping out to a 10-5 advantage behind a few kills from Hughes and multiple Portland hitting errors. The Zags hit at a .407 clip in the last frame, connecting for 12 kills with just a single error; on the other side of the net, GU forced Portland to hit -.100 with 11 hitting errors with 3.0 total blocks for the Zags. A 9-2 run in favor of Gonzaga put the Bulldogs up 19-7; the Zags cruised to the 25-11 set win and 3-1 match victory.
 
Portland finished with three players with double-figure kills, led by Wesley with a match-high 17. Jayde Harris added 14 and Claire Forrest, 10. Kellie Hughes added a team-high 27 assists, while Carey Williams finished with a match-high 27 digs.
 
With the win, Gonzaga concludes the shortened 2020 (2021 spring) season with a 7-11 overall record, all in West Coast Conference play.