Matadors Battle Before Falling in Four at No. 2 UCLA

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The second-ranked UCLA Bruins won a tightly contested four-set match Tuesday over the 12th-ranked CSUN Matadors, 25-21, 23-25, 25-18, 25-19 at Pauley Pavilion.

The Matadors (6-4) held a lead in every set but the third and despite the setback, CSUN head coach Jeff Campbell thinks his team is beginning to find its groove with a set lineup.

"We're definitely beginning to gel and we're playing better volleyball," said Campbell. "We played better against UC Santa Cruz and we played better tonight. We hit .287 and that was with a bunch of errors in the final set. We were down two sets to one but hitting over .400 as a team so that was encouraging.

"The problem right now is we're giving up too many points in runs," added Campbell. "Instead of giving up one or two points and siding out, we're giving up three, four or five points but I think we're improving each match as we build towards conference play."

Senior Arvis Greene led CSUN with 15 kills, hitting .275 on a match-high 40 swings. Greene narrowly missed his first collegiate double-double after adding a career-high nine digs. Junior Dimitar Kalchev added 14 kills and three blocks but had an off night hitting .135 on 37 attacks.

Freshman Maciej Ptaszynski chipped in seven kills (.429) and had CSUN's lone ace in the match along with a season-high eight digs. Senior Josiah Byers added six kills (.667), six blocks and four digs, all season highs, in the loss.

The Matadors had just nine hitting errors, hitting .403, over the first three sets before committing eight errors on .000 hitting in dropping set four.

The two teams battled to an 11-11 tie in the opening set when a UCLA hitting error followed by a Byers kill gave CSUN a 13-11 lead. The hosts would knot the score again at 17-17 and again at 18-18 when a Ptaszynski kill followed by a Christian Hessenauer hitting error again gave the Matadors a two-point lead.

CSUN still led by two at 21-19 following a Greene kill before a pair of UCLA kills forced a Matador timeout. But the set-clinching run continued out of the timeout as the Bruins rolled off six straight points to take the set 25-21.

Neither team led by more than one in set two until a Bruin hitting error gave CSUN a 9-7 lead. The Matadors pushed the lead to three at 11-8 and eventually led by as many as four (18-14) forcing a UCLA timeout.

After a Kalchev kill gave CSUN a 23-19 lead, the Bruins rallied to trim the lead to one forcing the Matadors to use both timeouts. Another Kalchev kill set CSUN up with set point at 24-22 and after UCLA saved on set point, Kalchev connected again giving the Matadors the 25-23 win.

After leading 4-3 early in set three, CSUN watched as UCLA quickly took control with a 6-0 run. The Bruins led by as many as eight before Ptaszynski's ace temporarily cut the UCLA down to five at 23-18. But a kill and a block by the hosts sent the match to a fourth set.

In the final set, Byers put up a solo block sending CSUN into the media timeout with a 15-13 lead. A Dylan Missry kill on the next point fueled a 5-0 UCLA run that turned a two-point deficit into a three-point Bruin lead. The UCLA lead swelled to five (23-18) before the final six-point margin sent the Bruins to the win.

Hessenauer had a match-high 17 kills to lead four Bruins in double figures in kills. As a team, UCLA hit .430 in improving to 11-1 on the season.

CSUN returns to The Matadome this Saturday as the Matadors host Stanford at 6 p.m.

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Matadors Battle Before Falling in Four at No. 2 UCLA

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Team Stats

Arvis Greene

Dimitar Kalchev

Maciej Ptaszynski

Josiah Byers

Players Mentioned

Josiah Byers

Arvis Greene

Dimitar Kalchev

Maciej Ptaszynski