California State University at Northridge
Princeton
No. 15 CSUN Opens Three-Match Week Wednesday at Princeton
2/8/2023 10:09:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK
MATCH #11:
No. 15Â CSUN Matadors (5-5) at Princeton Tigers (3-5)
Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023Â - 4:00Â p.m. PT
Dillon Gymnasium - Princeton, NJ
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #12:
No. 15Â CSUN Matadors (5-5) at NJIT Highlanders (5-4)
Friday, Feb. 10, 2023Â - 4:00Â p.m. PT
NJIT Wellness & Events Center - Newark, NJ
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #13:
No. 15 CSUN Matadors (5-5) at Fairleigh Dickinson Knights (3-2)
Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023Â - 9:00 a.m. PT
Stratis Arena Inside the Rothman Center - Hackensack, NJ
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
FORÂ STARTERS
The 15th-ranked CSUN men's volleyball team (5-5, 0-0 Big West) opens up a three-match trip to the East Coast on Wednesday as the Matadors take on Princeton at 4 p.m. (PT). CSUN also travels to Newark on Friday to take on NJIT Friday at 4 p.m., (PT) before concluding the trip Saturday morning at Fairleigh Dickinson at 9 a.m. PT. The Matadors finished 4-3 on their season-long, seven-match homestand which concluded last Saturday with a 3-2 upset over No. 6 Stanford.Â
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
All Matador 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.
CSUN RANKED 15TH IN NVA/AVCA?TOP-15 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
After receiving votes in four of the first five polls of the 2023 season, CSUN (5-5) returned to the Top-15 this week for the first time since the 2020 season. The Matadors picked up a season-high 19 points in the Feb. 6 NVA/AVCA Men's Division I-II Coaches poll, up 12 points from last week. 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.
Hawai'i (7-0) is the top ranked team for the sixth consecutive poll, collecting all 22 first-place votes and 330 total points. Long Beach State (6-0) moved into second this week followed in the top five by Penn State (8-1), UCLA (9-1) and Grand Canyon (10-0). Pepperdine (8-2) dropped to sixth this week, followed in the top-10 by UC Irvine (7-3), Stanford (7-2), Ball State (6-2) and BYU (6-2). The remainder of this week's top-15 includes Ohio State (7-3), USC (6-4), Loyola-Chicago (7-2), UC Santa Barbara (2-7) and the Matadors (5-5).
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
Princeton (3-5) wraps up a three-match homestand this week, hosting the Matadors on Wednesday and St. Francis Brooklyn on Friday. The Tigers, 1-1 at home in 2023, are coming off a 3-1 win over Sacred Heart. Ben Harrington leads Princeton, averaging 3.97 kps on .348 hitting along with a team-leading 21 aces. Defensively, Henry Wedbush leads the Tigers averaging 1.39 dps while Nyherowo Omene has a team-high 20 blocks (0.65 bps).Wednesday's match is just the fifth meeting all-time between CSUN and Princeton since 2015, The Tigers swept the Matadors in the most recent meeting (2020) which snapped a streak of two straight CSUN wins.
NJIT (5-4) closes a three-match homestand this week, hosting CSUN in a non-conference match on Friday and George Mason in EIVA action on Sunday. The Highlanders improved to 3-1 at home with a 3-0 sweep over Saint Francis last Friday. NJIT, which hit .330 for the match, was led by Jens Feldthus with 11 kills and Julian Meissner with 10. Friday's match is the sixth meeting all-time between CSUN and NJIT dating back to 2007. The Matadors had won four straight until the Highlanders handed CSUN a 3-0 loss in Northridge in 2022.
Fairleigh Dickinson (3-2), in its second season of men's volleyball, has not played since Jan. 21 when the Knights dropped a pair of matches at BYU. Fairleigh Dickinson, which defeated American International in its one home match in 2023, is led by OH Artem Vetrov who averages a team-high 2.91 kills per set. Saturday's match is the first-ever meeting between the two schools in men's volleyball.
MATADORS PICK UP A PAIR OF WEEKLY HONORS
Junior Griffin Walters was honored as Big West Player of the Week when the conference announced its weekly awards on Monday, Feb. 6. Walters, who missed Wednesday's match against Vanguard due to injury, came back to lead the Matadors to a five-set upset win over No. 6 Stanford on Friday (Feb. 3). Walters matched his career-high with 17 kills on a career-high 40 swings to hit .300. The junior from Sacramento also chipped in eight digs, two aces and a pair of blocks. He currently ranks second on the Matadors averaging 2.84 kills per set and is hitting a career-best .275 on 207 attacks. He also leads CSUN with 16 aces which ranks fifth in the Big West. The award marks the first Big West Player of the Week honor for CSUN this season and first since Kyle Hobus was named Offensive and Defensive Player of the Week on Feb. 28, 2022.
Senior Taylan Cook also received a national honor as he was named Off The Block Co-Libero of the Week after posting 24 digs in two matches last week, including a career-high 20 scoops in CSUN's 3-2 win over No. 6 Stanford. Cook moved up to sixth in the Big West in digs per set this week at 1.82.
CSUN CONCLUDES LONGEST HOMESTAND SINCE 2012
Friday's 3-2 win over No. 6 Stanford wrapped up CSUN's season-long, seven-match homestand. Originally an eight-match homestand, the schedule was revised after the Jan. 12 match against Edward Waters was canceled. The Matadors finished 4-3 on the homestand, their longest stretch of home matches since 2012 when CSUN finished 5-4 on a nine-match homestand from Feb. 29-Mar. 24. The program record for consecutive home matches is 11 straight from Feb. 4-Mar. 17, 2004 when CSUN finished 8-3. The Matadors also had a seven-match homestand in 2009 (finished 7-1) and a trio of six-match homestands in 1980, 2003 and 2020.
CSUN QUICK SETS
Sophomores Donovan Constable and Lorenzo Bertozzi each picked up his first collegiate double-double against Stanford. Constable had career-highs of 56 assists and 13 digs while Bertozzi had 12 kills and 11 digs ... Wednesday's match at Princeton marks the Matadors' first true road match of 2023. CSUN played three neutral site matches against UCLA, USC and Lincoln Memorial in Santa Barbara to open the season ... After dropping their first four matches of the season to teams ranked in the NVA/AVCA Top-15, the Matadors picked up their first win over a ranked team Friday against No. 6 Stanford. The win snapped a string of 10 straight CSUN losses to ranked teams dating back to Apr. 2 of the 2022 season. The Matadors' last win over a ranked team prior to Stanford came in dominating fashion as CSUN swept No. 9 UC San Diego (25-23, 25-21, 25-19) on Mar. 31 behind 12 kills and five blocks from Kyle Hobus. The Matadors are now 3-19 against teams ranked in the NVA/AVCA Top 15 dating back to the start of the 2022 season.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
2023 marks CSUN's sixth season as a member of the Big West in men's volleyball. Since the conference's inaugural season in 2018, the Matadors are 12-38 (.240) in 50 Big West matches over their first five seasons. CSUN finished 5-5 in the inaugural Big West season in 2018 before finishing 3-7 in 2019, 2-8 in 2021 and 1-9 in 2022. 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 the 2019, 2021 and 2022 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.
THEO EDWARDS NAMED CSUN'S MEN'S VOLLEYBALL COACH
Theo Edwards, CSUN's associate head coach since 2019, was named the successor to Jeff Campbell on Dec. 9, 2022. Edwards completed his 12th season on Campbell's coaching staff in 2022. He was promoted to associate head coach in August 2019 and served as the program's recruiting coordinator. He has been instrumental in CSUN's top recruiting classes over the last several years as the Matadors have brought in a host of AVCA Top 50 high school players. As a four-year letterwinner for the Matadors, Edwards had his finest season as a senior in 2010 as the Matadors reached the NCAA Tournament semifinals. He was the team captain of the squad that became just the second CSUN team, and first since 1993, to reach the NCAA Tournament.
LOOKING AHEAD
Following this week's three-match East Coast trip, the Matadors return to Northridge to open a brief two-match homestand against Benedictine (Ill.) Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. CSUN will also host Westcliff on the homestand which concludes on Feb. 22.
#GoMatadors
