California State University at Northridge
UC Irvine
No. 9 CSUN Closes Regular Season With Two vs. #4 UC Irvine
4/16/2025 1:06:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK:
MATCH #27 (BIG WEST #9):
No. 9Â CSUN Matadors (18-8, 3-5Â Big West) @ No. 4 UC Irvine Anteaters (18-6, 4-4 Big West)
Thursday, Apr. 17, 2025Â - 6:00Â p.m. PT
Bren Events Center - Irvine, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #28Â (BIG WEST #10):
No. 4 UC Irvine Anteaters @ No. 9Â CSUN Matadors
Saturday, Apr. 19, 2025Â - 6:00Â 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 No. 9 CSUN Men's Volleyball team (18-8, 3-5 Big West) closes out the regular season this week with two matches against No. 4 UC Irvine (18-6, 4-4 Big West). The Matadors and Anteaters meet Thursday at the Bren Events Center before moving to Premier America Credit Union Arena on Saturday at 6 p.m. The Matadors will honor seniors Lorenzo Bertozzi, Donovan Constable, and Matteo Salvador in a pre-match ceremony before Saturday's finale.
Constable and Bertozzi are both four-year letterwinners while Salvador is a three-year letterwinner for the Matadors. Constable heads into the homestretch of the season ranked sixth in program history with 3,536 career assists while Bertozzi has 450 kills and 252 digs.
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
Both matches this week will be streamed live on the ESPN+ platform. Ghizal Hasan will have the call on Saturday with CSUN women's volleyball head coach Aquiles Montoya joining as an analyst.
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 NINTH IN AVCA NATIONAL COLLEGIATE MEN'S VOLLEYBALL POLL
After winning a pair of five-set matches over No. 10 UC San Diego last week, the Matadors (18-8) remained ninth for the third straight week in this week's AVCA National Collegiate Poll (Apr. 14). CSUN has been ranked a season-high seventh three times in 2025, its highest ranking since the Matadors also ranked seventh on Jan. 15, 2018. After receiving a season-high 302 points on Mar. 10, CSUN received 292 points in this week's poll. The Matadors, ranked in all 17 polls last season, have now been ranked in all 15 polls this season (7th three times, 8th, 9th 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 (24-2) remained the No. 1 team in this week's poll, collecting all 23 first-place votes and 460 total points. The top five changed slightly as UCLA (19-4) remained second, followed by Hawai'i (23-4), UC Irvine (18-6), and USC (19-5). Loyola Chicago (22-3) remained sixth this week, followed in the top 10 by Pepperdine (17-7), BYU (17-9), the Matadors (18-8), and UC San Diego (17-9). The second half of this week's top-20 poll includes Stanford (10-11), McKendree (19-7), Grand Canyon (15-9), Lewis (21-8), Ohio State (16-10), Lincoln Memorial (21-1), Ball State (17-12), UC Santa Barbara (11-14), Princeton (13-9), and Mount Olive (19-3).
SCOUTING THIS WEEK'S OPPONENT
UC Irvine (18-6, 4-4 Big West), ranked 4th this week, picked up two wins against No. 18 UC Santa Barbara last week. Freshman libero Shane Aitken was named Big West Defensive Player of the Week after posting a career-high 13 digs in the win in Santa Barbara before adding six digs versus the Gauchos back in the Bren Center. For the week, Aitken averaged 2.38 digs per set last week. UCI leads the Big West, averaging 8.29 per set.
All-time series: The two matches this week mark the 80th and 81st meetings all-time between the Matadors and Anteaters. In the series that dates back to 1977, UCI holds a 42-37 edge in 79 previous matches. The two teams split the regular season matches last season with CSUN winning 3-1 at home and UCI winning in straight sets at home. The Matadors are 17-25 all-time against UCI in Irvine and 20-15 in Northridge.
PHILLIPS, CONSTABLE EARN BIG WEST PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Redshirt sophomore Jalen Phillips was named Big West Offensive Player of the Week for the third time this season, and senior Donovan Constable earned his fourth Big West Setter of the Week as the Big West announced its weekly awards on Monday.
Phillips, a redshirt sophomore opposite from Anaheim, led CSUN to a pair of five-set wins over No. 10 UC San Diego. Phillips had 61 kills over 10 sets to average 6.10 kills per set, including a career-high 34 kills in Saturday's reverse sweep. He hit .310 on 126 swings in the two matches, including a .400 clip on a career-high 65 attacks on Saturday. Phillips, who now has the national lead in kills for a single-match this season, also added 15 digs (1.50 per set) and three blocks. Phillips is also earned the award on Feb. 24 and Jan. 20.
Constable, now a seven-time Big West Player of the Week recipient in his CSUN career, picked up the fourth Big West Setter of the Week after a pair of 5-set wins over UCSD. Constable handed out 115 assists over 10 sets, averaging 11.50 assists per set. He had a career-high 62 assists in Saturday's reverse sweep. In leading the CSUN hitters to a combined .324 hitting clip, he also added 18 digs, two aces, and four blocks. Constable posted his first double-double of the season in Thursday's home win with 53 assists and 10 digs.
CONSTABLE CAREER ASSISTS WATCH
With the 56th of his career-high 62 assists at UC San Diego on Saturday, Constable moved into sixth place on the CSUN career assists list with 3,536. Constable moved past Gary Reznick who has 3,530 assists from 1990-94. With 3,536 career assists in 367 sets, Constable owns a 9.63 career assists per set average. Constable who played in his 100th career match against UCSB on Mar. 29, 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 has already passed Reznick (3,530), Travis Magorien (2,911) and Sam Porter (2,711) this season and has his sights set on Matt Stork who is fifth with 3,780. 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 Stork and fourth place by 244 assists.
CSUN QUICK SETS
Freshman Stilian Delibosov and Phillips lead the Big West in hitting percentage and kills per set respectively this week. Delibosov is hitting .480 with 174 kills and just 29 hitting errors on 302 swings this season. The freshman from Bulgaria also ranks second in blocks with a team-high 101 total blocks through 92 sets this season. At 4.31 kills per set, Phillips holds a slight edge over UCI's Hilir Henno who is second at 4.30 kps. Sophomore libero Chris Karnezis remained second in the Big West in digs per set at 1.87. With 178 digs this season, Karnezis has the most season digs for CSUN since Emmett Enriques had 199 in 2019 ... Since making his first start at middle blocker against UCSB on Mar. 28, Shane Nhem is hitting .493 with 43 kills and eight errors on 71 swings. Nhem also has 25 blocks over the six-match span ... Redshirt freshman Hank Kaufman hit a season-high .412 with 9 kills on 17 attacks against UCSD ... CSUN has won set two in 16 of its 18 wins this season.
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 3-5 record in 2025, the Matadors are now 18-50 (.265) in 68 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 against UC Irvine in Northridge, the Matadors will begin preparations for the 2025 Outrigger Big West Men's Volleyball Championship taking place Apr. 24-26 at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.Â
#GoMatadors
