California State University at Northridge
Hawai'i
14th-Ranked CSUN Hosts No. 2 Hawai'i in Two-Match Big West Set
3/23/2023 10:30:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK
MATCH #20 (BIG WEST #3):
No. 2 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors (18-2, 1-1 Big West) @ No. 14 CSUN Matadors (12-7, 1-1 Big West)
Friday, Mar. 24, 2023Â - 7:00Â p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #21 (BIG WEST #4):
No. 2 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors @Â No. 14Â CSUN Matadors
Saturday, Mar. 25, 2023Â - 7:00Â p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
FORÂ STARTERS
The 14th-ranked CSUN men's volleyball team (12-7, 1-1 Big West) returns to Big West play this week as the Matadors welcome second-ranked Hawai'i for a pair of matches at Premier America Credit Union Arena. CSUN, which has dropped two straight following an eight-match win streak, takes on the Rainbow Warriors Friday and Saturday with both matches scheduled for a 7 p.m. first serve.
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 SLIPS TO 14TH IN NVA/AVCAÂ TOP-15 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
The Matadors (12-7, 1-1 Big West) received 49 points but dropped two spots to 14th in the latest NVA/AVCA Men's Division I-II Coaches poll (Mar. 20). CSUN, which received a season-high 91 points to rank 12th last week, has now held the No. 14 spot a season-high four times in 2022. The Matadors moved back into the poll for the for the first time since the 2020 season on Feb. 6 (No. 15). Prior to Feb. 6 poll, 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.
Penn State (18-2) took over as the No. 1 team for the first time this season as the Nittany Lions collected 17 of 22 first-place votes and 321 total points. Hawai'i (18-2), which held the top spot for 11 consecutive polls, earned two first-place votes and 302 total points to rank second followed by UCLA (21-2) which received the other three first-place votes and 297 points. The rest of this week's top five remained the same with Long Beach State (12-3) fourth and Grand Canyon (20-1) fifth. UC Irvine (14-6) remained sixth, followed in the top-10 by Pepperdine (14-8), BYU (12-6), Loyola-Chicago (17-3) and Stanford (9-10). The remainder of this week's top-15 includes USC (8-9), Ball State (12-8), Charleston (18-2), the Matadors (12-7) and Ohio State (12-9).
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
Hawai'i (18-2, 1-1 Big West), which held the No. 1 ranking for the first 11 weeks of the season, dropped to No. 2 in this week's AVCA poll after splitting a Big West home series against No. 4 Long Beach State. UH is now 2-2 over its last four matches after opening the season with 16 consecutive wins. The Rainbow Warriors, 5-0 in road matches this season, are led by Dimitrios Mouchlias and Spyros Chakas who rank first and third respectively in the Big West in kills per set at 3.93 and 3.88. As a team, Hawai'i leads the Big West in five statistical categories (points, hitting pct., opponent hitting pct., kills, assists).
Series: The two matches in Northridge this week mark the 82nd and 83rd meetings all-time between the Matadors and Hawai'i. The Rainbow Warriors hold a 61-20 lead in the series and have won six straight and 10 of the last 11 in the series. Hawai'i won 3-1 and 3-0 in Honolulu last season. The Matadors have won 11 of the 34 matches at home in the series that dates back to 1979.
MATADORS ENJOY LONGEST WIN STREAK SINCE '09
CSUN's eight-match winning streak, from Feb. 3 to Mar. 3, was its longest winning streak in 13 seasons. The Matadors opened the streak with a thrilling 3-2 win over No. 6 Stanford and capped the streak with a dominating 3-0 win over the same 10th-ranked Cardinal. After falling to Vanguard on Feb. 1, CSUN won all seven of its remaining matches in February before opening the month of March with a sweep at No. 10 Stanford (Mar. 3). The 2009 CSUN squad had the program's most recent sizable win streak, claiming 10 straight from Feb. 6 to Mar. 11. The program record is 14 straight wins by the 2008 Matadors who went almost two months (Feb. 8 to Mar. 28) without losing a match.
CSUN FINISHES 11-6 IN NON-CONFERENCE PLAY
Despite a five-set loss to Daemen on Saturday, the Matadors wrapped up a successful non-conference season with 11 wins in 17 matches. After opening the season with consecutive losses to No. 2 UCLA and No. 10 USC in Santa Barbara, CSUN would go on to win 11 of its next 15 to complete its most successful non-conference season since finishing 10-7 in 17 non-conference matches in 2019.
MATADORS IN THE RECORD BOOKS
A trio of Matadors are looking to etch their names in the CSUN Rally Scoring era record books. Redshirt junior Kyle Hobus currently ranks fifth in kills per set with a career average of 3.40. Hobus heads into the week with 677 career kills in 199 sets while taking 1,536 attacks over his three-plus seasons. Sophomore Donovan Constable has already entered the Rally Scoring era record books with 1,261 career assists which is currently eighth. Constable opens the week just 85 assists from catching Jeff Conover (2004-05) for seventh on the Rally Scoring era assists list. Junior Griffin Walters added one ace against Daemen on Saturday and now has 75 career service aces. Walters is now seven aces away from moving into the top-10 as Mike Gaudino currently holds the #10 spot with 82 career aces.
CSUN QUICK SETS
Junior Griffin Walters had a career match in Saturday's match against Daemen. Walters connected for a career-high 20 kills on 36 swings to hit .417. He came within one dig of his second career double-double after also narrowly missing a double-double with 10 kills and nine digs against USC on Jan. 25. Walters notched his only double-double against Long Beach State during the 2021 season when he had 11 kills and 11 digs. Kyle Hobus notched his third career double-double against Daemen with 17 kills and 11 digs. Hobus had a pair of double-doubles in 2022 when he had 12 kills and 10 digs against Stanford and 21 kills and 12 digs at Long Beach State ... Saturday's loss to Daemen marked several firsts for the Matadors in 2023. The loss was CSUN's first when it leads the opposition in hitting (.311-.297), leads in digs (41-40) and leads in blocks (10.5-6.0). The Matadors had not lost a match in 2023 when they had won set three and won set four prior to the win by the Wildcats. After hitting a career-high .667 (10-0-15) in CSUN's 3-0 win at Stanford on Mar, 3, Lorenzo Bertozzi was hitting a season-high .323. The sophomore from Parma, Italy has hit a bit of a rough patch since, hitting a combined .190 over two matches last week ... Freshman Malcolm King put up a season-high nine block assists against Daemen and has taken over as CSUN's blocks per set leader at 1.00 per set.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
2023 marks CSUN's sixth season as a member of the Big West in men's volleyball. At 1-1, the Matadors are now 12-30 (.286) in 42 Big West matches over five-plus seasons since the conference's inaugural season in 2018. 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. He picked up his first collegiate coaching win when the Matadors swept Lincoln Memorial in Santa Barbara on Jan. 7. 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
After two matches against No. 2 Hawai'i this weekend, the Matadors face the meat of the Big West schedule over the next three weeks. CSUN will have home-and-home series against UC Irvine (Mar. 31-Apr. 1), Long Beach State (Apr. 7-8) and UC Santa Barbara (Apr. 15-14) to wrap up the 2023 regular season.
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