Head coach Cathy George was pleased with the win over last year’s national championship runner-up. However, she was more pleased with the aggressive play from her team.

“I know that Oregon — very good team, returned a lot of starters from last years team — it’s great the way our team composed themselves and did their jobs as well,” George said. “We got off task in game three, but we did a nice job, followed the game plan and got the win.”

Mathews scored the first kill of the game, and her aggressive play never eased up during the first set as her six kills led the Spartans to victory in game one.

Mathews posted five more kills in the second set, leading to a game two victory. Her strong play caused Oregon’s block to shift to her side of the court.

Mathews said that teams tend to key in on Wicinski early during games, which gave her early openings that she didn’t hesitate to capitalize off of.

“We’ve been working on me being more of an offensive threat,” Mathews said. “I was able to get more open, put a couple of balls down myself.”

With the defense focusing on Mathews, the defensive pressure eased on Wicinski — which she took advantage of. After mustering five combined kills in sets one and two, Wicinski scored a whopping 12 in the last two sets, including the game-winning kill in set four.

Wicinski said that with Alexis establishing herself as a threat, it opened holes for the rest of the Spartan offense.

“When she started getting her kills and she was over everyone, that clearly opens it up for our other hitters,” Wicinski said. “They’re stacked on her because they can’t stop her. Then there’s holes for me.

“It was very much a team effort tonight, and it was awesome.”

George said playing the block early was a goal for the team going into the match.

“We needed to play the block,” George said. “We watch how they play and we ended up going with Alexis and she get’s so high. Not a lot of people can stop her. It’s nice to be able to have her open up. She executes and she’s getting a lot of kills, and it started to open up the other pins by the end of the game.”

The match saw the return of junior outside hitter Taylor Galloway, who sprained her ankle against Pacific last Saturday. She had 12 kills of her own.

George said Galloway is an unsung hero on the team, as she does the little things that lead to victory.

“You may not see her get the same type of kill as Lauren Wicinski gets, but she does a nice job of mixing things up and being more solid with her ball control and defense and those types of things,” George said.

It wasn’t just Mathews and Wicinski who submitted key performances. Senior setter Kristen Kelsay had 36 assists on the night. Junior defensive specialist Ryian Hubbard played some setter and added 16 assists. Kori Moster had 22 digs

Freshman middle blocker Chloe Reinig, who is ill with mono, and sophomore setter Halle Peterson are still out. George currently has no time table for their return.

“We won’t put them in a situation where it’s going to hurt them or set them back,” George said.

MSU returns to action Saturday, when they’ll take on Oregon State at Jenison Field House at 7 p.m. Saturday.