California State University at Northridge
UC Santa Barbara
No. 14 Matadors Cap Regular Season Against UC Santa Barbara
4/13/2023 7:16:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK:
MATCH #26Â (BIG WEST #9)
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (5-16, 1-7 Big West) at No. 15 CSUN Matadors (12-13, 1-7 Big West)
Friday, Apr. 14, 2023Â - 7:00Â p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #27Â (BIG WEST #10):
No. 14Â CSUN Matadors at UC Santa Barbara Gauchos
Saturday, Apr. 15, 2023Â - 7:00Â p.m. PT
Rob Gym - Santa Barbara, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
FORÂ STARTERS
The 14th-ranked CSUN men's volleyball team (12-13, 1-7 Big West) opens the final week of the 2023 regular season this week as the Matadors open a home-and-home series against UC Santa Barbara Friday in Northridge. The Matadors and Gauchos will then wrap up the season series and the 2023 regular season Saturday in Goleta at 7 p.m. CSUN looks to put an end to an eight-match skid after the Matadors dropped a pair of matches to No. 4 Long Beach State last week.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 14TH IN THIS WEEK'S NVA/AVCAÂ TOP-15 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
Despite dropping a pair of matches to No. 4 Long Beach State last week, the Matadors (12-13, 1-7 Big West) moved up from 15th to 14th after receiving 34 points in the latest NVA/AVCA Men's Division I-II Coaches poll. CSUN, which received a season-high 91 points to rank 12th on Mar. 13, has now been ranked in the top-15 for 10 straight polls this season. 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.
Hawai'i (24-2) held on to the No. 1 spot again this week as the Rainbow Warriors collected 16 of 22 first-place votes and 321 total points. UCLA (25-2) remains No. 2 after earning the remaining six first-place votes followed by Penn State (22-3), Long Beach State (18-3) and UC Irvine (16-8). BYU (16-6) moved up to sixth this week, followed in the top-10 by Grand Canyon (21-6), Stanford (13-10), Pepperdine (16-11) and Ball State (18-8). The remainder of this week's top-15 includes Ohio State (19-9), Loyola-Chicago (21-6), USC (8-15), the Matadors and Charleston (22-4).
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
UC Santa Barbara (5-16, 1-7 Big West) wrap up its regular season with two matches against the Matadors. The Gauchos have dropped five straight and seven of their last eight since posting their only Big West win over UC San Diego on Mar. 3. Last week, UCSB dropped the final two sets in a five-set loss at UCSD. The Gauchos' Ryan Wilcox and Dayne Chalmers rank in the top 20 of The Big West in hitting percentage while UCSB ranks first in the Big West in digs per set at 9.08.
Series: The two matches this week mark the 105th and 106th meetings all-time between CSUN and UC Santa Barbara. The Gauchos hold a 62-42 lead in the series which dates back to 1978. UCSB has won eight straight in the series after sweeping both regular season matches last season before taking a 3-0 win in the opening round of the Outrigger Big West Championship in Hawai'i last April, which turned out to be former Matador head coach Jeff Campbell's final match. CSUN, 22-20 all-time against the Gauchos in Northridge and 14-38 all-time in Santa Barbara, last defeated the Gauchos in the first round of the 2019 Big West Tournament (3-1) in Long Beach. The Matadors' last win at home over UCSB came during the 2018 season.
SENIOR NIGHT FOR KRZMARZICK
After honoring six seniors on senior night in 2022, the Matadors will pay tribute to just one senior, Luke Krzmarzick on Friday night. Krzmarzick, who transferred to CSUN from Concordia Irvine prior to the 2020 season, has appeared in 26 matches and 60 sets in his Matador career. He appeared in 14 matches and 34 sets during the 2022 season, finishing with season-highs of 87 kills and 36 digs while averaging 2.56 kills per set which ranked third on the team. He has 131 career kills and put down a career-high 11 kills in CSUN's 3-1 win over No. 12 Stanford on Feb. 18, 2022 and also reached double figures with 10 kills (.368) against UC Merced (Feb. 4). Krzmarzick was one of two Matadors named to the 2022 Big West All-Academic Team.
CAREER NUMBERS WATCH
With 25 kills in two matches last week, junior Kyle Hobus bumped his career total to 744. In his three-plus seasons, Hobus currently ranks fifth in CSUN's Rally Scoring era in kills per set with a career average of 3.40. Hobus heads into the week with 744 career kills on 1,714 attacks over 219 sets. Hobus also has 293 career digs and 139 career blocks in his Matador career. Teammates Griffin Walters and Donovan Constable and also looking to etch their names in the CSUN record books this season. Constable has already entered the Rally Scoring era record books and heads into the week with 1,406 career assists. Constable passed Jeff Conover (2004-05) last week to move into seventh on the Rally Scoring assists list. With 76 career aces (30 this season), Walters is now six aces away from moving into the top-10 as Nils Nielsen currently holds the #10 spot in CSUN's Rally Scoring era with 82 career aces.
OUTRIGGER BIG WEST CHAMPIONSHIPÂ SCENARIOS
The Matadors and Gauchos open the final series of the regular season tied for fifth in the Big West standings at 1-7. UC San Diego, which plays two matches at top-ranked Hawai'i this week, currently holds fourth place at 2-6. The top three spots are held by Hawai'i (7-1), Long Beach State (7-1) and UC Irvine (6-2). With two wins this week and one UCSD loss in Hawai'i, the Matadors can reach as high as fourth place which would mean a match-up with the fifth place finisher in the opening round of the Outrigger Big West Championship which gets underway next Thursday (Apr. 20) at UCI's Bren Events Center. Tiebreakers will come into play if CSUN and UCSB split this week's matches.
The 2023 OUTRIGGER Big West Men's Volleyball Championship, presented by The Hawaiian Islands is set to open Thursday, April 20 at UC Irvine's Bren Events Center. First round matches will feature the No. 4 seed taking on the No. 5 seed at 5 p.m. and the No. 3 seed is pitted against the No. 6 seed at 7:30 p.m. The schedule on Friday, April 21, sees the advancing teams taking on the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds, with the games again slated for 5 and 7:30 p.m. The first two days of the championship will be streamed nationally on ESPN+. Produced by Spectrum Sports, Kanoa Leahey will be on the call with Chris McLachlin providing analysis for the four matches. The championship finale is set for 7:30 p.m. on ESPNU, serving as the first and only nationally-televised men's volleyball prior to the national championship on ESPN platforms in 2023. Paul Sunderland and Kevin Barnett will be on the call from Irvine
CSUN QUICK SETS
After opening the season with 28 aces in his first 16 matches, Walters has just two aces over his last eight matches. After serving his 29th ace of the season against Daemen on Mar. 18, Walters went ace-less over the next five matches before serving his 30th against Long Beach State on Saturday ... Jackson Payne served his first career CSUN ace against Long Beach on Friday ... Friday's five-set loss to No. 4 Long Beach State dropped the Matadors to 6-9 at home this season. However, CSUN has already surpassed its best home win total in the last three seasons. The Matadors' last winning season at home was 2019 when they finished 8-5 in 13 home contests ... Two losses last week to No. 4 Long Beach State dropped the Matadors to 2-10 this season against ranked teams. CSUN's two wins over ranked teams both came against Stanford on Feb. 3 and Mar. 3.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
2023 marks CSUN's sixth season as a member of the Big West in men's volleyball. At 1-7 this season, the Matadors are now 12-36 (.250) in 48 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.
#GoMatadors
