No. 8 Hawai'i Drops No. 11 Matadors in Four Sets

Friday, March 11

Northridge, Calif.

7:00 p.m.

California State University at Northridge

12-8, 5-8MPSF

Hawai'i

11-9, 6-9MPSF

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Hawai'i	25	20	25	25	3
CSUN	18	25	22	22	1

Photo by: Juan Ocampo

No. 8 Hawai'i Drops No. 11 Matadors in Four Sets

3/11/2016 10:14:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

NORTHRIDGE, CA - The eighth-ranked Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors used some hot hitting and timely blocking to defeat the 11th-ranked CSUN Matadors 25-18, 20-25, 25-22, 25-22 in an MPSF match Friday at The Matadome.

With the win, Hawai'i (11-9, 6-9 MPSF) slipped past CSUN (12-8, 5-8) into seventh place in the MPSF standings with a little over a month remaining in the regular season.

The Matadors had trouble stopping the Warrior hitters as the visitors hit .472 (62-11-108) to CSUN's .318 (54-20-107). Hawai'i, the eighth-best blocking team in the conference, also had a sizable advantage over the Matadors at the net recording a 12.5-2.0 advantage in team blocks. CSUN's two blocks matches its low for the season.

"I thought we served fairly well but they passed very well," said CSUN head coach Jeff Campbell. "I think if we get a few blocks the entire match changes, but we just didn't get any blocks. I thought their setting was a little erratic but we never made adjustments to those sets. They just kept hitting past our block over and over and over. We need to make some adjustments heading into Saturday's match."

Jakub Ciesla and Dimitar Kalchev provided much of CSUN's offense as the duo accounted for 34 of the Matadors' 54 kills. Ciesla put down a team-high 18 kills (.316) while Kalchev added 16 on .370 hitting. Ciesla added one ace but Kalchev was held without an ace for just the fifth time this season. Sophomore Josiah Byers added eight kills (.400) and 1.5 blocks while junior Bradley Sakaida had three of CSUN's five aces.

Sam Porter had the Matadors' other ace to go with 39 assists and CJ Suarez posted a career-high 13 digs.

After CSUN took an early 5-4 lead in set one, a 3-0 Hawai'i run put the visitors in front to stay. The Warriors extended the lead to six (13-7) and the Matadors could only manage to cut the lead to four the rest of the set.

CSUN evened the match with a 25-20 win in the second set despite being out-hit .542-.448. Sakaida, who had two aces in the set, gave the Matadors a 15-8 lead. CSUN led by as many as six points before a late Rainbow Warrior run cut the lead to 23-20. But kills from Kalchev and Byers capped a 25-20 Matador win.

The final two sets ended with the identical 25-22 scores as Hawai'i hit a combined .467 over the final two frames to take the 3-1 win.

The Rainbow Warriors, who snapped a five-match skid, were led by Sinisa Zarkovic's match-high 21 kills (.526) while Stijn van Tilburg added 16 (.379) and Kupono Fey chipped in 14 (.700).

CSUN and Hawai'i wrap up the two-match set Saturday at 7 p.m.

#GoMatadors