California State University at Northridge
Lewis University
No. 7 CSUN Caps Non-Conference Season at Lewis, Loyola Chicago
3/20/2025 12:08:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK:
MATCH #19:
No. 7Â CSUN Matadors (14-4) @ No. 15 Lewis Flyers (16-6)
Thursday, Mar. 20, 2025Â - 5:00Â p.m. PT
Neil Carey Arena - Romeoville, Ill.
Live Stream
Live Stats
MATCH #20:
No. 7 CSUN Matadors @Â No. 8 Loyola Chicago Ramblers
Saturday, Mar. 22, 2025Â - 3:00Â p.m. PT
Gentile Arena - Chicago, Ill.
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game XÂ updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The No. 7th-ranked CSUN Men's Volleyball team (14-4, 0-2 Big West) concludes the non-conference portion of the 2025 season this week, traveling to No. 15 Lewis on Thursday and No. 8 Loyola Chicago on Saturday. The Matadors are 14-2 in non-conference matches in 2025, their only two losses coming against No. 6 USC and No. 3 UCLA at the end of January. CSUN is coming off a two-match split last week, defeating No. 19 Princeton in four sets at home before falling in straight sets at top-ranked Long Beach State.
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
Both matches this week will be streamed live with Saturday's match at Loyola Chicago on ESPN+. 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 with CSUN women's volleyball head coach Aquiles Montoya joining Preston as an analyst for select matches.
Fans can also follow CSUN Matador men's volleyball online 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 SEVENTH IN AVCA NATIONAL COLLEGIATE MEN'S VOLLEYBALL POLL
After splitting a pair of home matches last week, defeating No. 19 Princeton before falling to No 1 Long Beach State, the Matadors (14-4) remained seventh in this week's AVCA National Collegiate Poll (Mar. 17). CSUN has now been ranked a season-high seventh for three straight weeks, its highest ranking since the Matadors also ranked seventh on Jan. 15, 2018. After receiving a season-high 302 points last week, CSUN received 300 points this week. The Matadors, ranked in all 17 polls last season, have now been ranked in all 11 polls this season (7th three times, 10th, 12th, 13th, 15th three times, and 16th twice). Prior to moving back into the AVCA national poll (#15 on Feb. 6, 2023) for the first time since the 2020 season, CSUN had previously 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 (18-0) remained the No. 1 team in this week's poll, collecting all 23 first-place votes and 460 total points. The top five had a little movement as UCLA (14-3) remained second with 437 points followed by USC (16-2), Hawai'i (19-2), and UC Irvine (12-4). BYU (13-6) remained sixth this week, followed in the top 10 by the Matadors (14-4), Loyola Chicago (15-2), Pepperdine (12-4), and McKendree (13-5). The second half of this week's top-20 poll includes Stanford (7-10), UC San Diego (16-4), Ball State (14-8), Grand Canyon (13-5), Lewis (16-6), Lincoln Memorial (14-1), Ohio State (11-8), UC Santa Barbara (8-10), Princeton (6-9), and Penn State (5-13).
SCOUTING THIS WEEK'S OPPONENTS
Lewis (16-6), ranked 15th this week, has dropped two straight after winning 16 of its first 20 matches of the season. The Flyers fell in four sets to Lindenwood on Mar. 13 before dropping a five-set decision to McKendree last Saturday (Mar. 15). Lewis, 9-2 on its home court, is hitting .338 as a team, led by junior OPP Oguzhan Oguz who averages a team-high 3.85 kills per set.
All-time series: Thursday's match is the 10th meeting all-time between the Matadors and Flyers with Lewis holding a 6-3 edge in the series. Lewis defeated the Matadors in five sets in Northridge last season, its third straight win in the series. CSUN is 1-1 all-time in Romeoville, the last match taking place in 2018.
Loyola Chicago (15-2) opens the week against No. 17 Ohio State in a MIVA matchup on Thursday before hosting the Matadors in a non-conference match on Saturday. Loyola earned the MIVA Player of the Week honors as Nicodemus Meyer was named defensive this week giving the Ramblers seven weekly conference awards in 2025. Loyola is hitting .355 as a team through 17 matches, led by redshirt senior Parker Van Buren who is averaging a team-leading 4.29 kills per set. The Ramblers are 9-1 in 10 home matches this season, their only loss coming to No. 15 Lewis in four sets on Feb. 27.
All-time series: Saturday's match is the ninth meeting all-time between the Matadors and Ramblers dating back to the first meeting in 2007. The series is knotted at four wins apiece but Loyola has won the last three including a straight-set win CSUN is 10-28 all-time against Long Beach State in Long Beach. The Matadors will look to snap a nine-match skid against the Beach dating back to their last win in 2021.
DELIBOSOV SECOND IN NCAA IN HITTING, BLOCKSÂ
Freshman Stilian Delibosov remained the Big West leader in both hitting and blocking while slipped to second in the NCAA in both categories. The freshman from Bulgaria is hitting .515 with 117 kills and just 17 hitting errors on 194 swings this season. Delibosov also has a team-high 69 total blocks through 57 sets this season, including six solo stuffs. Jalen Phillips and Donovan Constable also rank among the national leaders in several statistical categories this week. Phillips ranks sixth nationally and third in the Big West in kills per set at 4.27 and is seventh nationally and third in the conference averaging 4.93 points per set. Constable is third nationally this week in aces per set (0.62) and eighth in assists per set (10.21) which is second among Big West setters.
In this week's Big West rankings, the Matadors are third in a host of statistical categories. CSUN is third this week in hitting percentage (.327), points per set (16.60), kills per set (12.78), assists per set (12.02), and opponent hitting percentage (.237). The Matadors are fourth this week in blocks per set (2.31), aces per set (1.88), and points per set (16.97).
CONSTABLE CAREER ASSISTS WATCH
With 62 assists in two matches last week, senior Donovan Constable increased his career assists total to 3,206 in 332 sets, a 9.66 career assists per set average. Constable became just the seventh player in program history with 3,000 career assists with his 13th assist against Jessup on Feb. 14. The senior from Clovis is now 324 assists away from sixth place on the all-time program list. Constable has already passed Travis Magorien (2,911) and Sam Porter (2,711) this season and has his sights set on Gary Reznick who has 3,530 assists from 1990-94. Constable is one of four Matador setters in the program top-10 to play in the Rally Scoring era of collegiate volleyball. He also ranks fifth in CSUN's Rally Scoring era assists list, trailing Matt Stork and fourth place by 574 assists.
CSUN QUICK SETS
Freshman Joao Favarim set a season-high with nine kills on 12 swings to hit .750 in last week's 3-1 win over No. 19 Princeton. Favarim also moved his season blocks total to 39 which ranks third to Delibosov (69) and Constable (49).
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 an 0-2 record in 2025, the Matadors are now 15-47 (.242) in 62 Big West matches over seven-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 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 IN THIRD SEASON AS HEAD COACH
Theo Edwards is in 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 302 points to rank a season-high seventh on Mar. 10 this season. 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 Saturday's match in Chicago, the Matadors will resume Big West play against UC Santa Barbara in Northridge on Mar. 28. CSUN completes the home-and-home series with the Gauchos in Santa Barbara on Mar. 29 before hosting fourth-ranked Hawai'i for a pair of Big West matches on Apr. 4-5 at Premier America Credit Union Arena.Â
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