Thursday, January 25
Romeoville, Ill.
5:00 p.m.
California State University at Northridge
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at
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Lewis
Photo by: Paul Trafecanty
Matadors Fall in Four Sets at No. 10 Lewis
1/25/2018 7:13:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
ROMEOVILLE, Ill. - The ninth-ranked CSUN men's volleyball team dropped its second consecutive four-set match as No. 10 Lewis upset the Matadors 3-1 (25-21, 19-25, 25-12, 25-20) Thursday at Neil Carey Arena.
CSUNÂ (5-2) welcomed back senior All-American Arvis Greene who missed the last three matches with an injury. After a rough start, Greene led the Matadors with a season-high 22 kills, hitting .279 on 43 swings. Junior Dimitar Kalchev added 14 kills on .258 hitting but CSUNÂ didn't get much production from the rest of its hitters.
The Matadors, who came in leading the Big West in team blocking, were out-blocked for the second straight match as the Flyers piled up 14.5 team blocks to CSUN's 4.0. The Matadors also were out-hit for the second time in as many matches as Lewis connected at a .439 clip to CSUN's .206.Â
"Lewis played very well tonight, their blocking was far better than ours," said CSUN head coach Jeff Campbell. "But even though we lost tonight, I thought we did some nice things and we'll improve on our consistency at the net. Arvis hasn't played in a match in three weeks and I thought it showed, he was just ok tonight but he'll be better in our next match. We'll get in a good practice tomorrow and be ready to go against Loyola on Saturday."
After the host Flyers scored the first two points of the opening set, the Matadors used a 4-0 run to build a 6-3 lead following a block from Eric Chance and Maciej Ptaszynski. A Chance kill gave CSUNÂ its largest lead of the frame at 11-7 when Lewis rallied for four straight to knot the score.
Another Flyer kill out of a Matador timeout gave Lewis the lead for good and despite closing to 22-21 on a late Greene kill, the hosts pulled away to win the set 25-21.
In set two, CSUNÂ used a mini two-point run to extend an 8-6 lead to 10-6 forcing a Lewis timeout. The Matadors built the lead to as many as seven (14-7) on one of two Ptaszynski aces and CSUN's lead didn't dip below three the rest of the set.
The Matadors had trouble building on the momentum of set two as the Flyers claimed six of the first seven points to open the third set. The lead swelled to as many as 10 (14-4) following a Flyer ace and CSUNÂ could never recover, dropping the set 25-12.
The Matadors fell behind 4-1 in the final set and played from behind the entire set. Still in range trailing 14-10, CSUN was outscored 4-2 over the next six points to fall behind 18-12. Another Greene kill pulled the Matadors within four at 19-15 and CSUN also trailed by four at 23-19 (following Ptaszynski's second ace) but could get no closer.
Ryan Coenen led Lewis (4-3) with 12 kills and was one of three Flyer hitters to hit over .533 in the win.
CSUNÂ wraps up the two-match trip Saturday afternoon against No. 7 Loyola-Chicago. First serve at Gentile Arena is scheduled for 12 p.m. PST/2 p.m. CST.
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