
Photo by: Paul Trafecanty
Concordia Knocks Off No. 7 CSUN in Four Sets
1/19/2018 10:15:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. - Seventh-ranked CSUN was dealt a four-set defeat as the Matadors fell to unranked Concordia-Irvine 25-20, 21-25, 25-18, 25-20 in non-conference men's volleyball Friday night at The Matadome.
Coming off a 3-0 sweep at Stanford Wednesday night proved to a be a tough turnaround for the Matadors who got off to a slow start against the Eagles and never fully recovered.
"I thought this was a little bit of a trap game for us in the sense that we we played Wednesday night on the road at Stanford, had a travel day Thursday and it showed, the guys looked tired tonight," said CSUNÂ head coach Jeff Campbell. "But you've got to give Concordia credit, they came in really focused and played really well. The looked fresher than we did, to me we weren't mentally and physically 100% tonight."
Junior Dimitar Kalchev was called on to carry much of the offensive load as he had a match-high 16 kills but had to take a season-high 46 swings. Kalchev, who hit .217, added four digs and one ace which gave him 120 aces in his Matador career, one away from tying Kevin McKniff for third all-time in CSUNÂ history.
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Sophomore Ksawery Tomsia added nine kills (.091) and three digs and junior Eric Chance chipped in seven kills (.375) and a season-high eight blocks which included four solo stuffs. Maciej Ptaszynski came off the bench to provide a spark for the Matadors as he had three kills, four aces, six digs and five blocks.
After hitting a combined .363 over its first five matches, CSUNÂ struggled to a .191 clip against Concordia while the visitors hit .291. The Eagles also won the battle at the net, racking up 15.0 team blocks including 10 solo blocks. Behind Chance, the Matadors put up 14.0 team blocks.
CSUNÂ was also out-dug by Concordia 38-32 and out-aced nine to seven.
"We need to get better by the time we start conference play, that's the goal and that's why we're playing all these matches," added Campbell.
The Matador surrendered sizable runs to the Eagles the three sets they dropped on Friday. After Chance's kill pulled CSUN within 9-8 in set one, the visitors rolled off six straight points to open up a 15-8 lead. Concordia led by as many as seven points in the set and won the opener going away 25-20.
After hitting .114 in the opening set, CSUN righted the ship to out-hit the Eagles .464 to .143 in evening the match with the 25-21 set two win. A solo block from Tomsia put the Matadors in front 19-13 before Concordia rallied back to within three on a pair of occasions. After watching the Eagles save three set points, Ptaszynski connected on set point giving CSUN the 25-21 win.
In the decisive third set, a Schylar Lillethorup ace gave the Matadors an 11-9 lead. But an ensuing 7-0 run by Concordia put the visitors in front to stay and the Eagles headed to the fourth set with a 2-1 lead.
With the score tied at 6-6 in the final set, Concordia outscored the Matadors 8-1 over the next nine points to open up a 14-7 cushion. CSUNÂ engineered a late run to battle back to within 23-20 but kills from Raymond Barsemian and Hunter Howell ended the match.
Barsemian put down a team-high 15 kills on .289 hitting to lead the Eagles who improved to 2-0 on the young season. Jonathan Predney added 14 kills (.286) while Chandler Gibb posted 40 assists and 10 digs in the win.
CSUN next heads to the Midwest next week as the Matadors take on No. 11 Lewis (Jan. 25) and No. 8 Loyola-Chicago (Jan. 27).
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Team Stats
CUI-VB
CSUN
Kills
47
49
Errors
17
24
Attempts
103
131
Hitting %
.291
.191
Points
71.0
70.0
Assists
45
48
Aces
9
7
Blocks
15.0
14.0
Game Leaders
Players Mentioned
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National Student-Athlete Day 2019 - Ryan DeWeese
Friday, April 05