California State University at Northridge
St. Thomas Aquinas
16th-Ranked CSUN Travels to Virginia for a Pair of Matches
1/30/2025 2:03:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK:
MATCH #8:
No. 16 CSUN Matadors (5-2) vs. STAC Spartans (3-3)
Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025Â - 12:00Â p.m. PT
Recreation Athletic Complex - Fairfax, Va.
Live Stats
MATCH #9:
No. 16Â CSUN Matadors @ No. 20 George Mason Patriots
Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025Â - 10:00 a.m. PT
Recreation Athletic Complex - Fairfax, Va.
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game XÂ updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The 16th-ranked CSUN Men's Volleyball team (5-2, 0-0 Big West) hits the road for its longest trip of the season this week, traveling to Fairfax, Va., to meet St. Thomas Aquinas (3-3) and No. 20 George Mason (3-3) at GMU's Recreation Athletic Complex. As part of the Uvaldo Acosta Memorial Tournament, the Matadors meet the STAC Spartans Saturday at noon (3 p.m. ET) before taking on the host Patriots Sunday at 10 a.m. (1 p.m. ET).
CSUN had its season opening five-match win streak snapped in a 3-1 loss to No. 6 USC last Wednesday. The Matadors then slipped to 2-2 at home after No. 3 UCLA defeated CSUN by the same 3-1 score last Friday. Sunday's match at George Mason will be CSUN's first true road match of 2025.
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 SLIPS ONE SPOT TO 16TH IN AVCA NATIONAL COLLEGIATE MEN'S VOLLEYBALL POLL
Following 3-1 losses to No. 3 UCLA and No. 6 USC at home last week, the Matadors (5-2) slipped from 15th to 16th in this week's AVCA National Collegiate Poll (Jan. 27). After earning a season-high 139 points last week, CSUN received 136 points this week. The Matadors, ranked in all 17 polls last season, have now been ranked 15th in all four 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
Long Beach State (6-0) remained the No. 1 team in this week's poll, earning 22 of 23 first-place votes and 459 total points. UC Irvine (5-0), which earned the other first place vote, remained second with 434 points followed in the top five by UCLA (4-1), Hawai'i (6-0), and BYU (6-2). USC (5-0) remained sixth this week, followed in the top 10 by Loyola Chicago (6-0), Ball State (5-3), Stanford (3-1), and Pepperdine (3-1). The second half of this week's top-20 poll includes Grand Canyon (5-1), Lewis (6-1), Ohio State (3-3), Lewis (4-1), UC Santa Barbara (5-1), UC San Diego (7-1), the Matadors (5-2), Penn State (0-4), Princeton (2-3), Harvard (2-2), and George Mason (3-3).
SCOUTING THIS WEEK'S OPPONENTS
St. Thomas Aquinas (3-3) takes on George Mason on Saturday before meeting CSUN for the first time on Sunday. The Spartans have won three of their last four matches after defeating Edward Waters twice at home last weekend. Sophomore OH/OPP Gabriel Vieira was named ECC Player of the Week and junior setter Marcus Franck earned ECC Setter of the Week honors. All three wins for STAC this season have come on its home court.
All-time series: Saturday's match between the Matadors and Spartans is the first-ever between the two schools in men's volleyball.
#20 George Mason (3-3) meets St. Thomas Aquinas on Friday before hosting the Matadors on Sunday. The Patriots earned their 13th and 14th consecutive home wins after sweeping King University in a pair of matches last weekend (Jan. 24-25). GMU's three losses this season have all come against ranked teams; 3-0 at No. 17 UC San Diego along with 3-0 and 3-1 losses at No. 9 Grand Canyon. Sophomore OH Robert Evangelista, who had a match-high 15 kills in Saturday's 3-0 win over King, leads the Patriots averaging 3.06 kills per set.
All-time series: Sunday's match is the 16th meeting all-time between CSUN and George Mason dating back to the inaugural meeting in 1985. The Matadors have won none of the previous 15 matches but the Patriots have two of the last three including a 3-1 win in the most recent match-up at the UCSB Invitational in 2024. The teams have played once previously in Fairfax, Va. with George Mason winning in four sets in 1992.
CONSTABLE CAREER ASSISTS WATCHÂ
With 65 assists in two matches last week, senior Donovan Constable inched closer to seventh place in CSUN program history. Constable increased his career total to 2,827 career assists which now trails Travis Magorien and seventh place by 84 assists. The senior from Clovis has already moved past Sam Porter this season, Porter had 2,711 assists from 2016-19. Constable in one of four Matador setters in the program top-10 to play in the Rally Scoring era of collegiate volleyball. He ranks sixth in CSUN's Rally Scoring era assists list. With his next 173 assists this season, he would become just the seventh player in program history with 3,000 career assists.
CSUN VS. RANKED OPPONENTSÂ
No. 20 George Mason will be the third ranked opponent CSUN has faced in its last four matches. The Matadors dropped their first two matches this season against ranked squads last week, falling to No. 3 UCLA (3-1) and No. 6 USC (3-1). CSUN is scheduled to face 14 teams this season that are included on this week's AVCA National Collegiate Top-20 Poll.
CSUN QUICK SETSÂ
Senior Lorenzo Bertozzi connected for a career-high 17 kills against No. 6 USC. Bertozzi's previous career high was 14 kills against Hope International last season. The senior from Parma, Italy also set a new career-high with 34 swings against the Trojans ... Redshirt freshman Hank Kaufman made his Matador debut against UCLA. Kaufman, from nearby Santa Clarita, notched his first collegiate kill against the Bruins on three swings to hit .333 ... Redshirt sophomore Trevor Lau picked up his first career ace against UCLA along with his first two digs ... Freshman Boaz Serson served his first three aces as a Matador against No. 3 UCLA on Friday. Serson, who hit a season-high .500 two nights earlier against USC, also had season-highs of four digs, and a pair of kills against the Bruins ... Fellow freshman Joao Pedro Avila took a season-high 20 swings against USC ... After improving to 35-13 (.729) all-time in home openers with a 3-0 win over Purdue Fort Wayne on Jan. 17, the Matadors slipped to 2-2 on their home court through the season's first three weeks ... CSUN is 5-0 this season when hitting .350 or better and 0-2 when hitting .209 or below ... After winning five straight to open the season, the Matadors finished the opening month of the season at 5-2, their best since 2017 when CSUN opened 8-3 in January.
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
After its brief two-match trip to the East Coast, CSUN will return home on Feb. 7 to host Dominican College (NY) at 6 p.m. The match opens a stretch that will have the Matadors at home for seven of their next eight matches. The lone road match is at Pepperdine on Feb. 8.
#GoMatadors
