Saturday, February 3
Northridge, Calif.
7:00 p.m.
California State University at Northridge
3
vs
0
UC Santa Cruz
Photo by: Paul Trafecanty
Offensive Fireworks as No. 11 CSUN Sweeps UC Santa Cruz
2/3/2018 8:44:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. - Behind a dominating hitting performance, No. 11 CSUN swept visiting UC Santa Cruz 25-23, 25-19, 25-16 in a non-conference men's volleyball match Saturday night at The Matadome.
The Matadors, who improved to 6-3, hit a season-high .481 in the win as junior Dimitar Kalchev led CSUN with 15 kills on .619 hitting. Senior Arvis Greene added 14 kills (.407) while Eric Chance and Maciej Ptaszynski each chipped in seven kills with Chance hitting .778 on nine swings.
"I was excited tonight because I thought we got better as the match went on," said Campbell. "This was the first week since the holiday break that I felt we got better as a team. It was also nice to settle on a group of starters and let them play the entire match. But we've got to continue to get better because we've got a couple of big matches coming up next week."
CSUN, the national leaders in aces per set, added nine to its season total as senior Josiah Byers matched his career-high with three aces. Greene and Kalchev each had a pair and Ptaszynski and Sam Porter had one each. Porter also posted a season-high 43 assists as the Matadors committed just nine hitting errors on 79 attacks.
A Kalchev kill gave CSUN an early 7-3 lead in the opening set before two quick Banana Slug points cut the lead to 7-5. With Byers serving, the Matadors rolled off five straight points to open up a comfortable 12-5 lead. CSUN led by as many as nine (15-6) following a Porter ace and still led by eight (18-10) when the visitors made things interesting.
A Gino Gamboa ace capped a 9-4 Santa Cruz run as the Banana Slugs crept back within 22-19. After Chance put up a solo block on the ensuing point, UCSC took advantage of some Matador miscues down the stretch to string together four straight points to knot the score at 23-23. But Greene bailed the Matadors out with a kill followed by an ace on set point giving CSUN the 25-23 win.
The Matadors then hit .571 in each of the final two sets taking sizable leads in each frame, ultimately closing out the straight-set victory with 25-19 and 25-16 wins.
Ryan Manley led UC Santa Cruz (13-3) with eight kills (.150) while Gamboa and Lake Merchen each added six kills.
CSUN opens next week with a Tuesday night match against No. 2 UCLA at Pauley Pavilion before returning to The Matadome Saturday to host Stanford.
#GoMatadors
Players Mentioned
MB
/ Men's Volleyball
MB
/ Men's Volleyball
OPP
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OH
/ Men's Volleyball
S
/ Men's Volleyball
OH
/ Men's VolleyballCalHOPE Award Nathan Merren
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National Student-Athlete Day 2019 - Ryan DeWeese
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