Cal Baptist Upsets No. 13 CSUN in Five Sets

Wednesday, January 11

Riverside, Calif.

7:00 p.m.

California State University at Northridge

5-1, 0-1MPSF

California Baptist

2-2, 1-0MPSF

Team	1	2	3	4	5	Final F
CSUN	23	25	25	16	9	2
California Baptist	25	13	17	25	15	3

Photo by: Paul Trafecanty

Cal Baptist Upsets No. 13 CSUN in Five Sets

1/11/2017 11:55:00 PM | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

RIVERSIDE, CA - After winning two of the first three sets, the 13th-ranked CSUN men's volleyball team saw Cal Baptist come back to take the final two sets in a 25-23, 13-25, 17-25, 25-16, 15-9 upset victory in the MPSF opener for both teams Wednesday at Van Dyne Gym.

The Matadors saw their season opening five-match win streak snapped as CSUN slipped to 5-1 overall and 0-1 in conference play.

"We're capable of hitting really well and playing well, we just didn't do it for three sets tonight," said CSUN head coach Jeff Campbell. "We didn't play terrible in the sets we lost, we just didn't play well enough. We've got to serve tougher and be a little more consistent."

The Matadors hit a solid .358 (49-15-95) as a team as junior Arvis Greene pounded a match-high 19 kills. Greene hit .342 on a season-high 38 swings. Sophomore Dimitar Kalchev added 16 kills (.414), seven digs and a match-high four aces.

Junior Josiah Byers was effective in the middle putting down eight kills on .727 hitting while adding two aces and four digs. No other CSUN hitter had more than two kills.

Setter Sam Porter handed out 40 assists and libero CJ Suarez had a match-high 11 digs in the loss.

The Matadors got off to a slow start, putting down just seven kills and hitting a season-low .045 in dropping set one 25-23. The host Lacers hit .250 in the set to pull out the two-point win.

CSUN then got its offense in gear in sets two and three as the Matadors resembled the team that hit a conference-best .445 through five matches.

CSUN hit .650 in dominating set two. Greene's ace gave the Matadors an 8-5 lead and CSUN eventually pushed the lead to 17-9 when Eric Chance stuffed a Lancer attack. The final margin was 12 (25-13) following a Cal Baptist hitting error.

The third set was much of the same as CSUN upped its hitting to .684. The Matadors, holding a slim 12-11 lead, blew open the set by claiming six of the next nine points. The CSUN lead was never less than three the rest of the frame.

The hosts bolted out to leads of 5-1 and 8-2 in the fourth set and never looked back. The Matadors stayed close at 12-8 when Cal Baptist rolled off five straight to all but seal the set.

The two teams played to a 5-5 tie in the fifth when the Lancers got consecutive kills to force a CSUN timeout. Two more points out of the timeout made it a decisive 4-0 run and Cal Baptist won the fifth going away 15-9.

Rohit Paul shared team-high honors with three other Lancer hitters with 11 kills while he also matched Kalchev with four aces. Cal Baptist (2-2, 1-0) wound up hitting .340 as team in the win.

CSUN returns to action Saturday as the Matadors head to Los Angeles to take on USC at 7 p.m.

#GoMatadors