California State University at Northridge
Vanguard University
CSUN Continues Homestand Friday Against Vanguard
2/19/2020 2:43:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK:
MATCH #13
Vanguard Lions (7-3) at CSUN Matadors (3-9)
Friday, Feb. 21, 2020Â - 7:00Â p.m. PT
The Matadome (2,000) - Northridge, Calif.
Watch
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
FORÂ STARTERS
The CSUN men's volleyball team (3-9) continues its three-match homestand with a single match this week against Vanguard University (7-3) Friday at 7 p.m. The Matadors, who snapped a four-match skid with a 3-0 win over UC Merced last Friday, conclude the homestand next Friday (Feb. 28) against No. 8 UCLA.
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
Follow CSUN Matadors volleyball on-line at the official home of CSUN athletics, www.GoMatadors.com. All regular-season home matches will feature live stats and will be streamed live by the CSUN Sports Network presented by Dignity Health via Big West TV 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.
SCOUTING REPORT
Vanguard (7-3) swept both Hope International and The Master's University last week and has now won five of its last seven matches. The Lions, 3-1 in road matches this season, are led by sophomore OH Kyle Anema who has a team-high 179 kills while averaging 4.84 kills per set. Vanguard is hitting .277 as a team through 10 matches.
Series: Friday's match is the first meeting all-time between the Matadors and Lions. The two teams have two common opponents this season in Concordia-Irvine and Benedictine Mesa. The Matadors lost to Concordia in five sets at the UCSB Invitational in January before sweeping Benedictine at the same tournament. Vanguard fell to Concordia (3-1) in late January and fell to Benedictine in five sets at home on Feb. 7.
WETTER MAINTAINS NCAA HITTING LEAD
After hitting .647 with a team-high 13 kills and two errors on 17 swings against UC Merced last Friday, redshirt sophomore Daniel Wetter maintained his national lead in hitting percentage. Wetter, who is now hitting .551 on the season, has 133 kills and just 19 errors on 207 attacks this season. Wetter put down a career-high 15 kills in a five-set loss at Lindenwood on Feb. 8. The sophomore middle has hit better than .357 in 11 of CSUN's 12 matches this season. A career .459 hitter, Wetter would take over as CSUN's career hitting percentage leader if the season ended today. Wetter is currently two percentage points ahead of former Matador All-American Jacek Ratajczak, who hit .457 from 2007-10.
PTASZYNSKI SURPASSES 300 CAREER DIGS, APPROACHES 500 KILLS
With 20 digs in two matches at Lindenwood, junior Maciej Ptaszynski surpassed the 300 digs plateau in his Matador career. Ptaszynski, who has 70 digs this season to rank second only to Taylor Ittner (72), is averaging a career-best 1.46 digs per set through 12 matches. He has been CSUN's leader in digs five times this season, including a career-high 14 digs against Concordia-Irvine in January. With six kills against UC Merced on Friday, Ptaszynski is now within 10 kills of reaching 500 for his Matador career. The junior from Gdansk, Poland had 141 kills as a freshman in 2018, a career-high 221 kills last season and ranks second on the team with 128 so far in 2020.
WALTERS COMES UP ACES Â
With a season-high six aces in Friday's win over UC Merced, freshman Griffin Walters took over as CSUN's leader in aces per set at 0.50. Ptaszynski holds the team lead with 23 aces in 28 sets which averages out to 0.48 aces per set while Walters now has 12 aces in 24 sets in his first season. Walters has at least one ace in five of the seven matches in which he has appeared this season.
ITTNER CLIMBS CAREER ASSISTS LIST
With 83 assists in two matches at Lindenwood, sophomore setter Taylor Ittner upped his career assists total to 1,434. Last week, Ittner moved past Jeff Conover (2004-05) into seventh-place on CSUN's Rally Scoring era assists list and now has a team-high 442 assists this season. Ittner, who recorded 992 assists during his freshman season in 2019, now sets his sights on Sam Porter who is currently sixth in Rally Scoring and eighth all-time with 2,711 career assists.
CSUN IN THE NATIONAL STATS
As a team, the Matadors continue to rank in the top-15 in the national stats in a trio of categories. This week, CSUN ranks 12th in assists per set (11.63) and kills per set (12.54) and is 14th in hitting percentage (.287). The Matadors are also currently 17th in aces per set (1.48), 19th in team attacks per set (27.44), 30th in blocks per set (1.89), 34th in digs per set (8.15) and 38th in opponent hitting percentage (.294).
Individually, Wetter not only ranks first in hitting but is also 39th in blocks (0.88), 57th in points per set (3.44) and 61st in kills per set (2.77). Ittner ranks ninth in assists per set (10.07) and is also 60th in digs per set (1.64). Ptaszynski is in the top-20 in aces per set this week, ranking 16th at 0.48. Ptaszynski is also 42nd in hitting percentage (.287), 51st in points per set (3.51), 69th in kills per set (2.67), 82nd in attacks per set (6.02), 90th in blocks per set (0.62) and 92nd in digs per set (1.46). Freshman Kyle Hobus ranks 33rd in attacks per set (7.61), 41st in kills per set (3.07), 43rd in points per set (3.66) and 80th in aces per set (0.24).
CAMPBELL IN HIS 23RD SEASON AS HEAD COACH
In terms of wins and losses, Jeff Campbell has been the most successful coach at CSUN over the past 17 years. Campbell has posted 267 wins (nearly 16 wins per season) since the 2003 season which is quite an accomplishment considering the Matadors have annually played in the toughest men's volleyball conference in the country. He has a career record of 321-321 (.500) and is the all-time winningest coach in CSUN men's volleyball history.
Having become the program's all-time winningest coach during the 2010 season, Campbell reached the 150, 200, 225 and 250 career milestone wins over the last 10 seasons. Currently, the second-longest tenured head coach at CSUN (men's golf coach Jim Bracken is in his 32nd season) Campbell has earned double-figure win totals in 20 of his 22 seasons on the bench, posting a career-best 24 wins in 2009.
MATADOR QUICK SETSÂ
/// CSUN picked up just its second home win of the season with Friday's 3-0 victory over UC Merced. All three of the Matador wins this season have come by way of the 3-0 sweep. CSUN also swept Benedictine (Jan. 11) and Cal Lutheran (Jan. 25). The Matadors have been swept just twice this season, by No. 10 Purdue Fort Wayne (Jan. 15) and No. 13 Princeton (Feb. 1).
/// Freshman setter James McMillan made his first collegiate start against UC Merced and handed out a season-high 37 assists as CSUN hit a season-high .429 in the win. McMillan also added a pair of kills, four digs and one block assist.
/// Sophomore Luke Krzmarzick had the best match of his young CSUN career, putting down nine kills on .350 hitting against UCÂ Merced.
LOOKING AHEAD
After Friday's single match match against Vanguard (Feb. 14), CSUN hosts UCLA on Feb. 28 before wrapping up the pre-Big West schedule at UCLA on Mar. 5. The Matadors open their third Big West season Mar. 13 against top-ranked Hawai'i. CSUN's final non-conference match this season is Mar. 19 against NJIT.
#UniteTheValley
