California State University at Northridge
Hawai'i
No. 18 CSUN Seeks Big West Wins at No. 2 Hawai'i
3/21/2024 10:40:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATCH #20Â (BIG WEST #3)
No. 18 CSUN Matadors (9-10, 0-2) @ No. 2 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors (17-3, 0-2)
Friday, Mar. 22, 2024Â - 10:00Â p.m. PDT
SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center - Honolulu, Hawai'i
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #21Â (BIG WEST #4)
No. 18Â CSUN Matadors @ No. 2 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors
Saturday, Mar. 23, 2024Â - 10:00Â p.m. PDT
SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center - Honolulu, Hawai'i
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The 18th-ranked CSUN Men's Volleyball team (9-10, 0-2 Big West) travels to No. 2 Hawai'i for two matches Friday and Saturday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu. Both matches are scheduled for a 10 p.m. first serve (7 p.m. local time).
The Matadors, 2-2 in road matches this season, are coming off a home-and-home series with No. 18 UC San Diego last week that CSUN drop a 3-1 decision in La Jolla before the Tritons pulled off the reverse sweep Friday in Northridge. The Matadors, who last won in Honolulu in 2013, are looking for their first conference win since winning in four sets at UC San Diego on Feb. 24, 2023.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 SLIPS TO 18TH IN AVCA/NVA TOP-20 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
After dropping their first two Big West matches to UC San Diego last week, the Matadors (9-10) slipped two spots to 18th in this week's AVCA/NVA National Collegiate MVB Poll. CSUN, which was ranked 16th for six straight weeks, earned 63 points this week, down 44 points from last week. The Matadors, who received a season-high 149 points on Feb. 5, have been ranked in all 12 polls this season. CSUN was 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, 2023 (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 (18-1) took over as this week's top-ranked team, earning all 23 first-place votes. Hawai'i (17-3) slipped to second this week, followed in the top five by UCLA (16-4), UC Irvine (15-6), and Grand Canyon (18-2). Stanford (9-9) remained sixth this week, followed in the top 10 by BYU (11-7), Pepperdine (16-5), Penn State (15-6), and Ohio State (15-7).. The remainder of this week's top-20 includes Loyola-Chicago (14-8), Ball State (16-7), USC (11-10), Lewis (12-11), Princeton (9-9), UC San Diego (11-10), George Mason (11-7), the Matadors (9-10), McKendree (13-7), and UC Santa Barbara (7-14).
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
Hawai'i (17-3, 0-2 Big West), ranked 2nd in this week's AVCA/NVA Top-20 poll, opened league play last week, dropping a pair of matches to Long Beach State in Long Beach. The Rainbow Warriors are 14-1 at home this season with a current 13-match home win streak. Of UH's 14 home wins, 12 have come in straight sets. Freshman OH Louis Sakanoko received his second Big West Freshman of the Week award this week after posting season-highs of 19 kills, nine digs, and three blocks in a five-set loss to Long Beach State last week. Setter Tread Rosenthal has won the award six times this season.
All-Time Series: The two matches this week mark the 84th and 85th meetings all-time between the Matadors and Warriors. In the series that dates back to 1979, Hawai'i has won 63 of the previous 83 meetings, including a 33-7 mark against CSUN at home. The two teams have also met 10 times at neutral sites with CSUN winning six of the 10. CSUN and UCSD split the Big West series last season with each winning on the other teams' home court; the Matadors won in four in La Jolla before UCSD claimed a straight-set win at CSUN.
HOBUS IS 15TH CSUNÂ PLAYER WITH 1,000 CAREER KILLS
With his seventh kill in the opening set at UC San Diego on Thursday, senior Kyle Hobus became the 15th player in CSUN men's volleyball history to reach 1,000 career kills. Hobus, who opens the week with 1,035 career kills, is the second CSUN hitter in the last five years to reach the milestone after Dimitar Kalchev reached 1,000 in 2019. Hobus, who now trails Kalchev (1,262) by 227 kills for 10th place all-time, moved past Isaac Kneubuhl (1,029) into seventh place on CSUN's Rally Scoring era kills list. Hobus now trails Brian Waite (1,068) and sixth place by 33 kills.Â
Hobus also moved into the top 10 in Rally Scoring era in a pair of other categories in recent weeks. Hobus is currently fourth with a career kills per set average of 3.44 and seventh with 2,343 career attacks. Hobus opens the week trailing Kneubuhl (2005-08) by 164 attacks for sixth place.
CONSTABLE SURPASSES 2,000 CAREER ASSISTS
Junior setter Donovan Constable, already in the CSUN career top-10 in assists, became the 10th player in CSUN men's volleyball history with 2,000 career assists after posting 43 against Lewis on Feb. 24. Constable, who ranks fourth in the Big West and 13th nationally this week at 9.73 assists per set, now has 2,206 career assists to became the first Matador setter since Sam Porter in 2019 to reach 2,000 career assists. Matt Unger is the CSUN record holder with 5.732 assists from 1989-93. Since the sport went to the rally scoring format in 2001, only six Matador setters have reached 2,000 career assists (John Baxter - 5,164, Ty Tramblie - 4,090, Travis Bluemling - 3,833, Matt Stork - 3,780, Travis Magorien - 2,911, and Porter).
CSUN QUICK SETS Â
Junior Matteo Salvador has provided an offensive spark for the Matadors in recent weeks. After putting down nine kills against UC Merced on Feb. 7, Salvador connected for a CSUN career-high 12 kills last Thursday at UC San Diego. Now hitting .416 on the season, Salvador has hit a combined .310 in his two starts this season; .375 at UCSD, .222 vs. the Tritons at home ... After starting 85 of the first 86 matches of his CSUN career, senior Griffin Walters came off the bench in the two matches against UCSD. Walters had six kills and one error on 11 attempts Saturday at home to hit .455 ... Jalen Phillips rebounded from a series of tough hitting nights to hit .294 (15-5-34) against the Tritons on Friday, his best percentage since hitting .304 against UC Merced on Feb. 7. Phillips hit .412 with 19 kills and five errors on 34 swings in CSUN's 3-1 win at No. 4 Stanford on Feb. 3 ... After falling in four sets at UC San Diego on Friday and five sets in Northridge on Saturday, CSUN is now 20-27 (.426) all-time in conference season openers and 27-20 (.574) all-time in conference home openers ... After finishing the non-conference portion of the 2024 schedule with a 9-8 record, the Matadors are now 20-13 in regular season non-conference matches in two seasons under Theo Edwards. CSUN finished 11-5 in 16 non-conference matches in 2023 ... After falling in four sets to No. 9 Penn State, CSUN finished 3-4 on its season-long, seven-match homestand. The Matadors also played a seven-match homestand in 2023, finishing 5-2. The pair of seven-match homestands are CSUN's longest stretch of home matches since 2012 when the Matadors 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.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
This season marks CSUN's seventh as a member of the Big West in men's volleyball. After starting 0-2 in 2024, the Matadors are now 12-40 (.231) in 52 Big West matches over six-plus 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 this week's two-match set at No. 2 Hawai'i, the Matadors will return home next Friday (Mar. 29) to take on No. 4 UC Irvine at 6 p.m. CSUN will travel to Irvine the following night (Mar. 30) before opening the final month of the regular season with home and away matches against Long Beach State (Apr. 5-6) and UC Santa Barbara (Apr. 12-13) which will cap the regular season.
#GoMatadors
