California State University Northridge Athletics
California State University at Northridge
Purdue Fort Wayne
15th-Ranked CSUN Opens Home Schedule Hosting UA Challenge
1/15/2025 11:44:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK - UNDER ARMOUR CHALLENGE
MATCH #4:
Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons (1-0)Â vs. No. 15 CSUN Matadors (3-0)
Friday, Jan. 17, 2025 - 7:00 p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #5:
Lindenwood Lions vs. No. 15 CSUN Matadors
Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025 - 7:00 p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game XÂ updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The 15th-ranked CSUN Men's Volleyball team (3-0, 0-0 Big West) returns home to open the 2025 home season against Purdue Fort Wayne on Friday (Jan. 17). The match opens a four-match homestand for CSUN which also includes visits from Lindenwood (Jan. 18), USC (Jan. 22), and UCLA (Jan. 24). The matches against Purdue Fort Wayne and Lindenwood are part of the 2025 Under Armour Challenge held at Premier America Credit Union Arena. No. 17 UC San Diego will be the fourth team in UA Challenge, taking on Lindenwood (Friday at 4 p.m.) and Purdue Fort Wayne (Saturday at 4 p.m.).
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 any live stats, audio and video. Fans are also encouraged to check the CSUN Athletics Department's official X feed (@GoMatadors) and the volleyball-specific feed (@CSUNMensVB) for news and notes throughout the week as well as updates of matches in progress.
CSUN REMAINS 15TH IN AVCA TOP-20 NATIONALÂ COACHES POLL
Despite winning all three matches at the season-opening UCSB ASICS Invitational, the Matadors (3-0) remain 15th in this week's AVCA National Collegiate Preseason Poll (Jan. 13). After earning 121 points in the preseason poll on Dec. 30, CSUN earned a season-high 130 points this week. The Matadors, ranked in all 17 polls last season. have now been ranked in both polls this season. Prior to moving back into the AVCA national 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
UCLA (1-0) remained No. 1 for the second week, earning 20 of 23 first-place votes and 456 total points. Long Beach State (1-0) remained second, picking up the other three first-place votes and 438 points. The rest of this week's top five features UC Irvine (3-0), Hawai'i (4-0), and BYU (4-0). Ball State (3-1) is sixth this week, followed in the top 10 by USC (2-0), Loyola Chicago (2-0), Grand Canyon (2-0), and Pepperdine (0-0). The second half of this preseason top-20 includes Stanford (1-1), Lewis (2-0), Ohio State (2-2), Penn State (0-2), the Matadors (3-0), UC Santa Barbara (3-0), UC San Diego (3-0), George Mason (0-0), Princeton (0-1), and Harvard (0-2).
SCOUTING THIS WEEK'S OPPONENTS
Purdue Fort Wayne (1-0) opened the 2025 season with a four-set win at home over Central State on Jan. 10. Head coach Donny Gleason earned his first career win with the Mastodons. PFW had 10 aces in the match with Andrej Polomac leading with three aces. Both Polomac (36 assists and 11 digs) and Axel Melendez Watts (10 kills and 10 digs) posted double-doubles against the Marauders. Purdue Fort Wayne meets The Master's in Santa Clarita on Thursday, before taking on the Matadors and UC San Diego in Northridge.
All-time series: Friday's match is the 15th meeting all-time between the Matadors and Mastodons dating back to 1988. CSUN holds an 11-3 lead in the series. The two teams last met in 2020 in Northridge when PFW swept the Matadors 25-20, 25-23, 26-24.
Lindenwood (1-0) hosts No. 2 Long Beach State on Wednesday before traveling to Northridge for this weekend's Under Armour Challenge. The Lions opened the season with a 3-0 win over Rockford on Jan. 10. Brendan Louthain had a career-high 13 kills (.478) to lead Lindenwood in the win.
All-time series: Saturday's match marks the fifth meeting all-time between the Matadors and Lions with the series tied at two wins apiece. After CSUN won the first two matches in 2016 and 2019, Lindenwood claimed the last two matches, winning a pair (3-1, 3-2) in a two-match series in St. Charles, Mo. in 2020.
CSUN EARNS THREE BIG WEST POW HONORS
In the first Big West weekly awards of the 2025 season, CSUN picked up three of the four honors as senior Donovan Constable was named Setter of the Week and freshman Stilian Delibosov earned both Defensive Player of the Week and Freshman of the Week accolades on Monday (Jan. 13).
Constable picks up the first Big West Setter of the Week of his career after leading No. 15 CSUN to a 3-0 weekend at the UCSB ASICS Invitational. Constable averaged 11.20 assists per set in wins over Tusculum, Missouri S&T, and Menlo while also adding 13 digs, 12 kills, and 10 blocks while hitting .625 on 16 swings from the setter spot. He had 31 assists, a career-high seven aces, six kills (1.000), and four digs as the Matadors swept Tusculum in their season opener on Thursday. Constable then added 38 assists, five digs, and a pair of blocks against Missouri S&T before closing the weekend with 43 assists, six blocks, five kills, four digs, and a pair of aces in a 3-1 win over Menlo.
Delibosov, a freshman middle from Razlog, Bulgaria, had an impressive weekend making his collegiate debut for CSUN. He hit .889 with eight kills on nine errorless swings against Tusculum to go with five blocks as the Matadors won in straight sets. He then hit .600 with seven kills on 10 swings with three blocks and one ace against Missouri S&T before closing the weekend with an eight kill, 11-block performance against Menlo. With 11 blocks, Delibosov etched his named in the CSUN Rally Scoring era record books, tying the single-match blocks record with Brian Waite and Stan Douglas.Â
CONSTABLE CAREER ASSISTS WATCHÂ
With 112 assists in three matches last week, Constable now has 2,675 career assists at CSUN. Sitting at No. 9 in Matador history, Constable is now 36 assists from Sam Porter and eighth-place. With 325 assists this season, he would become just the seventh player in program history with 3,000 career assists.
MATADOR DEBUTS Â
In addition to Delibosov, four other CSUN players made his debut at the UCSB Invitational. Joao Pedro Avila knocked down 18 kills (1.80 kps) over three matches while also adding 13 digs, six blocks, five assists, and one ace. Fellow Brazilian Joao Favarim also made three starts in the middle, posting 10 kills (1.00 kps) on .444 hitting along with seven blocks, five digs, and one ace. Boaz Serson came off the bench against both Missouri S&T and Menlo, providing a spark from the service line while also notching his first collegiate kill against Menlo. Serson also added four blocks in the win over the Oaks while Braden Pool-Harris appeared in four sets against Menlo in the second libero spot.
CSUN QUICK SETSÂ
In winning all three matches at the UCSB Invitational for the first time since 2018, the Matadors improved to 56-37 (.602) all-time in the tournament dating back to 2001. In its 24th appearance in UC Santa Barbara's annual tournament in the last 28 years, CSUN swept both Tusculum and Missouri S&T before defeating Menlo in four sets ... With the 3-0 win over Tusculum, the Matadors claimed their season opener for the first time since 2019, when CSUN defeated Concordia Irvine in four sets at the UCSB Invitational.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
The 2025 season marks CSUN's eighth as a member of the Big West in men's volleyball. With a 3-7 regular record in 2024, the Matadors are now 15-45 (.250) in 60 Big West matches over seven 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 and 2024, 2-8 in 2021 and 1-9 in both 2022 and 2023. The 2020 conference season was not contested due to COVID-19. 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 THIRD SEASON AS HEAD COACH
Theo Edwards opens his third season as CSUN's head coach in 2025 after leading the Matadors back into the AVCA national rankings in his first two seasons. Now in his 15th 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. Last season, CSUN advanced to the semifinal round of the Outrigger Big West Championship for the first time since 2018 and finished the season with a 13-16 (3-7 Big West) record and a No. 14 national ranking.
LOOKING AHEAD
Following this week's Under Armour Challenge, CSUN concludes the four-match homestand against No. 7 USC and top-ranked UCLA next week. The Matadors host the Trojans on Wednesday, Jan. 22 before welcoming the Bruins on Friday, Jan. 25. Both matches are slated for a 6 p.m. first serve.Â
#GoMatadors
