California State University at Northridge
Hawai'i
Matadors Resume Big West Action With Two Matches at No. 4 Hawai'i
3/24/2022 11:51:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATCH #14 (BIG WEST #3)
CSUN Matadors (5-8, 0-2 Big West) @ No. 4 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors (16-3, 1-1 Big West)
Friday, Mar. 25, 2022 - 10:00 p.m. PDT
SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center - Honolulu, O'ahu
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #15 (BIG WEST #4)
CSUN Matadors @ No. 4Â Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors
Saturday, Mar. 26, 2022 - 10:00 p.m. PDT
SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center - Honolulu, O'ahuÂ
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
FORÂ STARTERS
The CSUN Men's Volleyball team (5-8, 0-2 Big West) returns to Big West Conference play this week as the Matadors travel to fourth-ranked Hawai'i looking for their initial conference win of the season. CSUN, which lost its first two Big West matches against No. 5 UC Santa Barbara (Mar. 10-11), completed its non-conference slate last week dropping a home-and-home series with seventh-ranked Pepperdine. The Matadors have yet to win on the road in 2022 after falling in straight sets to the Waves at Firestone Fieldhouse on Mar. 16.Â
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
All CSUN home matches this season will be streamed live on the ESPN+ platform with Darren Preston handling a majority of the play-by-play this season. Fans can also follow CSUN Matador men's volleyball on-line at the official home of CSUN athletics, www.GoMatadors.com for related links to the match, including for any live stats, audio and video. 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 THE OPPOSITION
#4 Hawai'i (16-3, 1-1 Big West) was idle last week after sweeping a pair of home matches against Lewis (Mar. 10-12). The Rainbow Warriors are unbeaten in 12 matches this season at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. UH is 1-1 in Big West play after splitting its conference opening set at UC San Diego (Mar. 2-3). The Warriors lead the nation in blocks per set (2.99) and sophomore middle blocker Guilherme Voss is the nation's individual leader at 1.46 blocks per set.
Series: The two matches in Honolulu this week mark the 80th and 81st meetings all-time between the Matadors and Hawai'i. The Rainbow Warriors hold a 59-20 lead in the series that dates back to 1979. Hawai'i has won four straight and eight of the last 10 in the series including 3-0 and 3-1 wins in The Matadome in 2021. CSUN is 7-31 all-time at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center, the Matadors' last win in Honolulu coming in 2013 when they claimed a pair of 3-1 victories.
NVA/AVCAÂ TOP-15 NATIONAL COACHES POLL - MAR. 21 (WEEK 12)
After earning votes in the last three NVA/AVCA Top-15 Coaches polls, CSUN (5-8) was not listed in the latest poll released Mar. 21. The Matadors received a season-high 12 points in the 2022 preseason poll before receiving nine points in week one (Jan. 10), seven points in week two (Jan. 17), six points in week eight (Feb. 28) and three points in consecutive weeks (Mar. 7, 14). CSUN was last ranked among the top-15 on Jan. 13, 2020 when the Matadors were 13th in the 2020 preseason coaches poll. Prior to that, CSUN had been ranked in the AVCA Top-15 for 62 consecutive weeks and 262 of the last 289 weekly polls dating back to the 2002 season.
UCLA remained number one for the fifth straight week as the Bruins (13-3) earned 11 of 19 first-place votes and 266 points. Penn State (17-3) picked up five first-place votes to remain second followed in the top-five by Long Beach State (12-3), Hawai'i (16-3) and USC (16-3), all receiving one first-place vote. UC Santa Barbara (14-4) remained sixth this week followed in the top-10 by Pepperdine (11-6), Ball State (15-2), Grand Canyon (13-8) and UC San Diego (9-7). The remainder of this week's top-15 includes Loyola-Chicago (13-6), Lewis (11-9), UC Irvine (8-9), Stanford (9-8) and NJIT (11-6).
HOBUS, WETTER REACH CAREER KILL MILESTONESÂ
With seven kills against Pepperdine last Friday, Kyle Hobus surpassed 300 kills in his Matador career. Hobus, who leads CSUN with 112 kills this season, now has 304 career kills in 103 sets for a 2.95 kills per set average. He has been the Matador leader in kills in four straight matches and eight times in 13 matches this season. With six kills against UC Santa Barbara on Mar. 11, Daniel Wetter surpassed the 500-kill mark for his CSUN career. Despite missing four matches earlier this season, Wetter still ranks fourth on the team with 68 kills in 2022. With 68 kills and just 17 hitting errors on 126 swings, Wetter is hitting .405 this season. The middle blocker from Camarillo heads into the week with 513 career kills on a career hitting percentage of .446 which currently ranks second in program history to Jacek Ratajczak's .457 from 2007-10 . Wetter posted a season-high 176 kills as a redshirt freshman in 2019 followed by 159 kills in 2020 and 110 in the abbreviated 2021 season. His best hitting percentage season was 2020 when he hit .528 on 252 attacks to earn NVA/AVCA Honorable Mention All-America as well as All-Big West First Team accolades.
MATADOR NOTES
Junior transfer Inaki Bustamante earned the first two starts of his CSUN career against Pepperdine and responded with a season-high eight kills (.159) in Malibu on Mar. 16. Bustamante has 17 kills on .113 hitting in seven appearances this season ... Redshirt junior setter Taylor Ittner made his first on-court appearance since Feb. 8, 2000 when he came off the bench to record a pair of assists against Pepperdine on Friday. Ittner last played in a match over two seasons ago when injuries forced him out of the Matador lineup. In his career, Ittner has played in 39 matches while posting 1,436 assists in 148 sets (9.70 assists per set) which ranks seventh in CSUN's rally scoring era ... With a pair of 3-0 losses to Pepperdine last week, CSUN finished up the non-conference portion of the 2022 schedule with a 5-6 record in 11 matches. The Matadors, who played only Big West matches during the abbreviated 2021 season, finished 4-11 in non-conference play in 2020 and last posted a winning non-conference season record in 2019 when the Matadors finished 10-6Â ... In this week's Big West Individual stats, Hobus continues to rank among the conference's top-20 in five statistical categories. He is currently ninth in both in kills per set (2.95) and points per set (3.63) while also ranking 11th in hitting percentage (.278), 12th in aces per set (0.26) and 14th in blocks per set (0.76). Wetter continues to be the highest ranked CSUN player this week as he ranks third in the conference in hitting at .405.
CAMPBELL PICKS UP 325TH CAREER WIN
CSUN's 3-0 win over Cal Lutheran on Jan. 28 was the 325th career win for CSUN head coach Jeff Campbell. In his 25th season at the helm of the program, Campbell now boasts a career record of 329-342 and has been the most successful coach at CSUN over the past 17 years. Campbell has posted 278 wins (nearly 14 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.
Now in his 25th season, he is the all-time winningest coach in CSUN men's volleyball history with 329 career victories. Campbell become the program's all-time winningest coach during the 2010 season, reaching the 150, 200, 225 and 250 career win milestones over the last 10 seasons. Currently, the second-longest tenured head coach at CSUN (men's golf coach Jim Bracken is in his 36th 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.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
The 2022 season marks CSUN's fifth as a member of the Big West Conference in men's volleyball. Since 2018, the Matadors are 10-22 (.313) in Big West play after dropping their first two conference matches to No. 5 UC Santa Barbara on Mar. 10-11. CSUN finished 5-5 in the inaugural Big West season in 2018 before finishing 3-7 in 2019 and 2-8 in 2021. The 2020 conference season was not contested due to COVID-19. The Matadors reached the semifinals of the Big West Tournament in 2018 in Long Beach before falling in both the 2019 and 2021 quarterfinals in Hawai'i. Prior to 2018, CSUN played 25 seasons as a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) from 1993-2017 and 16 seasons in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (WIVA) from 1977-92.
LOOKING AHEAD
After road matches in Honolulu this week, the Matadors begin the home stretch of the 2022 conference with a home-and-home series Mar. 31 at UC San Diego. CSUN hosts UCSD on Apr. 2 before concluding the regular season with home-and-home sets against UC Irvine (Apr. 8-9) and Long Beach State (Apr. 15-16).
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