California State University at Northridge
Hope International
16th-Ranked CSUN Hosts Hope International in Week's Lone Match
2/14/2024 11:44:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATCH #13
Hope International Royals (4-2) @ No. 16 CSUN Matadors (7-5)
Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024Â - 6:00Â p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The No. 16 CSUN Men's Volleyball team (7-5, 0-0 Big West) continues its season-long, seven-match homestand on Wednesday as the Matadors welcome Hope International (4-2) to Premier America Credit Union Arena at 6 p.m. The match against the Royals is the only match for the Matadors this week as they will have a 10-day break from game action before hosting No. 13 Lewis on Jan. 24.
CSUN is coming off a two-match home split last week that saw the Matadors top UC Merced in four sets before falling in straight sets to The Master's University, the No. 1-ranked NAIA team in the country.
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. Andrew Rector will handle the broadcast duties for Wednesday's match against Hope International.
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 REMAINSÂ 16TH IN AVCA/NVA TOP-20 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
After splitting a pair of home matches last week, the Matadors (7-5) remained 16th in this week's AVCA/NVA National Collegiate MVB Poll. CSUN, which has now been ranked 16th two straight weeks, earned 97 points this week, down 52 points for its season-high 149 points last week. Ranked in all seven polls this season, the Matadors were ranked in the AVCA/NVA Top-15 poll for 10 straight weeks last season (Feb. 6-Apr. 10). Prior to moving back into the top-15 poll for the first time since the 2020 season on Feb. 6 (No. 15), 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.Â
Long Beach State (10-1) remained top-ranked team for the third straight week, earning 17 of 23 first-place votes and 453 total points this week. Grand Canyon (9-0), which received the remaining five first-place votes, remained second followed in the top five by Hawai'i (10-1), UCLA (9-3), and Stanford (7-3). BYU (9-3) moved up to sixth this week, followed by UC Irvine (6-4), Ohio State (8-3), Penn State (8-3), and Loyola-Chicago (7-6). The remainder of this week's top-20 includes Pepperdine (9-2), USC (8-4), Lewis (7-4), Ball State (9-7), Princeton (6-5), the Matadors, George Mason (3-5), UC Santa Barbara (4-9), Lincoln Memorial (7-3), and UC San Diego (3-8).
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
Hope International (4-2) has won four of its first six matches to open the 2024 season after sweeping the University of Saint Katherine at home on Tuesday. Coby Prowse led the Royals with 11 kills against USK, while Julian Zavala added 10. Zavala leads HIU averaging 3.52 kills per set, the Royals are hitting .213 as a team through six matches.Â
All-Time Series: Wednesday's match is the fifth meeting all-time between the Matadors and Hope International with CSUN winning all four previous matches in straight sets. All four previous matches in the series, which dates back to 2005, have been played in Northridge. The Matadors won in straight sets in 2005, 2008, 2009, and 2017.
HOBUS CONTINUES TO CLIMB CSUN CAREER CHARTS
After moving into the CSUN Rally Scoring era top-10 in recent weeks, senior Kyle Hobus continues to move up on the charts. Hobus currently ranks third with a career kills per set average of 3.39 which is just ahead of Joe Nargi who averaged 3.38 kps from 2001-03. Hobus also ranks eighth in career attacks with 2,103 which now trails Mike Gaudino (2,157) for seventh place by 54 attempts. With 922 career kills, Hobus moved past Gaudino into the No. 10 spot. Gaudino was previously 10th with 898 kills from 2007-10. Hobus opens the week needing 78 kills to become the 15th player in CSUN men's volleyball history with 1,000 career kills.
CONSTABLE SEVENTH IN NCAA IN ASSISTS Â
Junior setter Donovan Constable ranks seventh nationally this week in assists per set at 10.13. After leading the Big West for three weeks, Constable is second this week behind UC Irvine's Brett Sheward who leads the conference at 10.20. As a team, CSUN ranks ninth in the nation and third in the Big West, averaging 11.74 assists per set. The Matadors rank as high as sixth in the nation in kills per set at 12.61.
CSUN AGAINST RANKED TEAMS Â
After dropping their first three matches this season to teams ranked in the AVCA/NVA Top-20, the Matadors have won two of their last three after knocking off No. 4 Stanford on Feb. 3. CSUN is now 2-4 this season against AVCA ranked teams with wins over Stanford and No. 11 USC. The Cardinal were fifth ranked team the Matadors have faced this season after opening the season against No. 7 Grand Canyon and No. 20 George Mason in Santa Barbara before falling in five tough sets to No. 16 Princeton at home on Jan. 19. CSUN's win over No. 4 Stanford was its first victory over a team ranked in the AVCA top-five since Jan. 9, 2019 when the Matadors upset No. 2 UCLA in straight sets at home. Friday's loss to The Master's was CSUN's first loss to an unranked team in 2024.
QUICK SETS
CSUN is 1-1 nearing the midpoint of its current seven-match homestand. The Matadors will face two unranked teams (Hope International, Charleston) and a trio of ranked teams (Lewis, Pepperdine, Penn State) over the remainder of the homestand ... Junior outside Matteo Salvador came off the bench to have the best match of his CSUN career last Wednesday against UC Merced. Over the final three sets against the Bobcats, Salvador connected for a career-high nine kills with just one error on 14 swings to hit ,643. He also added a pair of aces, three digs, and two blocks which were also CSUN career-highs for the junior from Sesto San Giovanni, Italy ... The Matadors have served more aces in 11 of their 12 matches this season. The lone exception being CSUN's Feb. 2 match at No. 4 Stanford when the Cardinal served 10 aces to the Matadors' one. In total, CSUN now has 87 team aces to 48 for its opponents. Three Matadors have double figures in aces, led by Hobus with 19. With six aces over his last three matches, Malcolm King is now tied for second on the team with Jalen Phillips with 18. In 46 sets as a freshman, King had five aces and 51 service errors. This season, King has improved those numbers dramatically with 18 aces and 53 service errors over 44 sets.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
2024 marks CSUN's seventh season as a member of the Big West in men's volleyball. After finishing 1-9 in 2023, the Matadors are now 12-38 (.240) in 50 Big West matches over six seasons since the conference's inaugural campaign in 2018. CSUN finished 5-5 in the first Big West season in 2018 before finishing 3-7 in 2019, 2-8 in 2021 and 1-9 in both 2022 and 2023. The 2020 conference season was not contested due to COVID-19. The Matadors reached the semifinals of the Big West Championship Tournament in 2018 in Long Beach before falling in the 2019, 2021 and 2022 quarterfinals in Hawai'i. CSUN fell to host UC Irvine in the quarterfinals of the 2023 Outrigger Big West Championship. Prior to 2018, the Matadors 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.
EDWARDS OPENS SECOND SEASON AS HEAD COACH
Theo Edwards opens his second season as CSUN's head coach in 2024 after leading the Matadors back into the AVCA national rankings in his first season. Now in his 14th season at CSUN, Edwards was named the successor to Jeff Campbell on Dec. 9, 2022. CSUN finished 12-16 in Edwards' first season (1-9 in the Big West) as CSUN moved back into the national rankings for the first time in three seasons. The Matadors received a season-high 91 points to rank a season-high 12th on Mar. 13. CSUN was ranked in the top-15 for 10 straight polls in 2023 after moving back into the poll for the for the first time since the 2020 season on Feb. 6 (No. 15).
LOOKING AHEAD
After taking on Hope International on Wednesday, CSUN will break for 10 days before resuming its current homestand Feb. 24 against No. 13 Lewis at 6 p.m. The final three matches of the seven-match homestand has the Matadors hosting No. 11 Pepperdine (Feb. 28), Charleston (Mar. 1), and No. 9 Penn State (Mar. 5).
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