California State University Northridge Athletics
California State University at Northridge
Cal Lutheran
12th-Ranked Matadors Host Cal Lutheran in Non-Conference Match
2/6/2019 3:48:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK
MATCH #12:
Cal Lutheran Kingsmen (4-7) @Â No. 12 CSUN Matadors (6-5)
Friday, Feb. 8, 2019Â - 7:00 p.m. PT
The Matadome (2,000) - Northridge, Calif.
Live Stats
Big West TV
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
FORÂ STARTERS
The 12th-ranked CSUN men's volleyball team (6-5, 0-0 Big West) continues its three-match homestand this week as the Matadors host Cal Lutheran in a non-conference match Friday at 7 p.m. The Matadors, who fell in four sets at No. 6 Pepperdine last week, opened the homestand last Friday (Feb. 1) with a 3-2 comeback victory over Princeton which snapped CSUN's four-match skid.
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
Follow CSUN Matadors volleyball on-line at the official home of CSUN athletics, www.GoMatadors.com. All home matches will feature live stats and will be streamed live by the CSUN Sports Network presented by Dignity Health via Big West TV. 11Â Matador home matches will feature a webcast with Darren Preston handling the play-by-play. For road matches, related links to the match, including for any live stats, audio and video, will be posted before the match on the men's volleyball schedule page of GoMatadors.com.Â
Fans are also encouraged to check the CSUN Athletics Department's official Twitter feed (@GoMatadors) and the volleyball-specific feed (@CSUNMensVB) for news and notes throughout the week as well as updates of matches in progress.
MATADORS REMAINÂ 12THÂ IN FEB. 4 AVCAÂ TOP-15 COACHES POLL
After dropping a 3-1 decision at No. 6 Pepperdine and defeating unranked Princeton in five sets last week, CSUN remained 12th in this week's AVCA Div. I Coaches Top-15 Poll released Feb. 4. The Matadors earned 70 points this week, a four-point improvement over last week. CSUN has been ranked as high as 10th this season, receiving a season-high 98 points on Jan. 14. The Matadors have now been ranked in the AVCA Top-15 for 52 consecutive weeks and 252 of the last 278 weekly polls dating back to the 2002 season.
Long Beach State (10-0) received all 16 first place votes this week and are ranked number one for the sixth straight poll. Hawai'i (5-0) remained second this week followed in the top five by UC Irvine (11-2), UCLA (8-2) and Pepperdine (6-2). UC Santa Barbara (7-3) is sixth this week followed in the top 10 by BYU (4-2), Loyola-Chicago (7-3), Stanford (7-3) and Lewis (7-4). Ball State (6-4) is 11th this week followed by the Matadors (6-5), George Mason (7-1), USC (6-4) and Purdue Fort Wayne (6-4) rounds out this week's top-15.
SCOUTING REPORT
Cal Lutheran: The Kingsmen (4-7) have dropped five straight matches after opening the season 4-2. Cal Lutheran dropped four road matches last weekend at Carthage (3-0), North Central (3-0), Dominican (3-0) and Benedictine (3-0), all teams ranked in the AVCA Division III Top-15. Junior outside hitter Patrick Rowe leads the Kingsmen averaging 2.49 kills per set while Cal Lutheran is hitting .191 as a team through 11 matches. Head coach Kevin Judd is in his fourth season as head coach.Â
SERIES STORY
Friday's match is the first of two meetings this season and fourth all-time between CSUN and Cal Lutheran. The Matadors have yet to drop a set to the Kingsmen in three previous matches dating to 2016. The two teams will meet again Feb. 15 in Thousand Oaks.
PTASZYNSKI DOUBLES UP Â
With 12 kills and 10 digs at Pepperdine on Wednesday, sophomore Maciej Ptaszynski picked up his first double-double of the season and second of his Matador career. The outside hitter from Gdansk, Poland notched his first collegiate double-double last season (Feb. 24) at Concordia-Irvine when he had 18 kills and 12 digs which both stand as career highs for Ptaszynski. Â
ENRIQUES NAMED LIBERO OF THE WEEKÂ Â
Senior Emmett Enriques was named Off the Block National Libero of the Week after scooping up 23 digs in a pair of matches last week. Enriques, who leads CSUN with 91 digs this season, dug a career-high 17 Pepperdine attacks on Wednesday in Malibu and came back six digs in the Matadors' 3-2 win over Princeton on Friday. For the week, he averaged 2.56 digs per set while Enriques averages a team-leading 1.90 digs per set which ranks seventh in the Big West. Â
KALCHEV CLOSING ON CAREER ACES RECORD
With single ace in both matches last week, senior outside hitter Dimitar Kalchev inched closer to taking over as CSUN's career aces leader. Kalchev now has 177 career service aces and trails Eric Vance and second place by four aces and CSUN career leader Eckhard Walter by six. With a team-high 25 aces this season, he ranks fifth in the Big West and 12th nationally in aces per set (0.53). With his fifth kill against Ball State on Jan. 19, Kalchev became the 15th player in CSUN history to reach 1,000 career kills. Kalchev, who now has 1,042 kills in his Matador career (sixth in CSUN's Rally Scoring Era), is this first player since Eric Vance in 2009 to reach the career milestone.
CAREER NUMBERS UPDATEÂ
In addition to Kalchev, Enriques and senior setter Sam Porter have also etched their names into the CSUN record books. With 271 digs in 137 career sets, Enriques currently ranks fourth in Matador rally scoring history averaging 1.98 digs per set. Porter added 13 assists against Princeton to his career total of 2,684 which is eighth all-time and sixth in CSUN's rally scoring era. Â Â Â
RZEPNIEWSKI INCREASES HITTING PCT.
Paul Rzepniewski and his Matador career got off to somewhat of a slow start but the redshirt freshman middle has turned things around in recent weeks. Rzepniewski had seven kills for the season but was hitting .000 after a four-kill effort against UC Merced on Jan. 11. He then hit .375 with three kills on eight errorless attacks in CSUN's 3-2 win at No. 13 Purdue Fort Wayne on Jan. 18, which has propelled him on a six-match stretch where he is hitting an impressive .414. Rzepniewski has 31 kills, including a season-high 10 at No. 6 Pepperdine, over his last six matches while committing just seven hitting errors on 58 swings. Now hitting .304 on the season, he also has 19 blocks over that span, giving him 27 total blocks which ranks third on the team this season.
MATADOR QUICK SETSÂ
• The duo of Tomsia and Kalchev has provided the Matadors with quite a 1-2 punch this season as the pair has accounted for 291 of CSUN's 544 kills (53.4%). With a combined 356.5 points, Kalchev and Tomsia have also accounted for 49.4% of the Matador points through 11 matches. Either Kalchev or Tomsia has been CSUN's kill leader in 10 of the teams' 11 matches in 2019. Â
• Wednesday's 3-1 loss to No. 6 Pepperdine dropped the Matadors to 3-5 against ranked teams this season and all five CSUN losses have been to teams ranked in the top 14.
• The Matadors have used the same starting lineup in nine of the first 11 matches of the season. With Enriques, Taylor Ittner, Kalchev, Ptaszynski, Rzepniewski, Tomsia and Daniel Wetter in the starting lineup, CSUN is now 5-4 this season.Â
• In the current Big West team stats, CSUN ranks as high as third in service aces with an average of 1.65 per set. The Matadors lead the conference with 79 aces over 48 sets. CSUN is fifth in three other categories (hitting pct., opponent hitting pct and blocks) and is sixth in kills, assists and digs.
LOOKING AHEAD
Following Friday's match against Cal Lutheran, the Matadors conclude their current three-match homestand next Wednesday (Feb. 13), hosting Pepperdine at 7 p.m. The match, the second between the two teams this season, follows a 3-1 win by the Waves in Malibu on Jan. 30. CSUN then makes a return trip to Cal Lutheran Feb. 15 before opening up the Big West Conference season Mar. 1 at Long Beach State.
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