California State University at Northridge
Hawai'i
No. 9 CSUN Hosts No. 5 Hawai'i in Two-Match Home Series
4/3/2025 9:53:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK:
MATCH #23 (BIG WEST #5):
No. 5 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors (21-2, 4-0 Big West) @ No. 9 CSUN Matadors (15-7, 0-4 Big West)
Friday, Apr. 4, 2025Â - 6:00Â p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #24 (BIG WEST #6):
No. 5 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors @Â No. 9Â CSUN Matadors
Saturday, Apr. 5, 2025Â - 6:00Â p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
Live Stats
In-game XÂ updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The No. 9th-ranked CSUN Men's Volleyball team (15-7, 0-4 Big West) plays two of its final four home matches this week, welcoming No. 5 Hawai'i (21-2. 4-0 Big West) for Big West matches on Friday and Saturday. First serve at Premier America Credit Union Arena is set for 6 p.m. both nights.
The Matadors resumed conference play last week, dropping a tough 3-2 decision at home to No. 18 UC Santa Barbara before falling 3-1 in The Thunderdome the next night.Â
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
Only Friday's match will be streamed live on the ESPN+ platform with Alex Nevaja on the call. A majority of Matador home matches this season will be streamed live with Darren Preston handling a majority of the play-by-play this season with CSUN women's volleyball head coach Aquiles Montoya joining 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 RANKED NINTH IN AVCA NATIONAL COLLEGIATE MEN'S VOLLEYBALL POLL
After dropping a pair of Big West matches to No. 18 UC Santa Barbara last week, the Matadors (15-7) slipped one spot to ninth in this week's AVCA National Collegiate Poll (Mar. 31). 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 262 points in this week's poll. The Matadors, ranked in all 17 polls last season, have now been ranked in all 13 polls this season (7th three times, 8th, 9th, 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 (21-1) remained the No. 1 team in this week's poll, collecting 21 of 23 first-place votes and 458 total points. The top five changed slightly as UCLA (16-3) remained second with two first-place votes and 437 points, followed by USC (18-2), UC Irvine (15-5), and Hawai'i (21-2). Loyola Chicago (19-2) remained sixth this week, followed in the top 10 by BYU (15-7), Pepperdine (14-6), Pepperdine (14-6), the Matadors (15-7), and UC San Diego (16-6). The second half of this week's top-20 poll includes McKendree (15-7), Stanford (9-10), Grand Canyon (14-8), Lewis (19-7), Ball State (17-9), UC Santa Barbara (11-10), Lewis (17-7), Lincoln Memorial (16-1), Ohio State (12-10), Princeton (9-9), and Mount Olive (18-2).
SCOUTING THIS WEEK'S OPPONENT
Hawai'i (21-2, 4-0 Big West), ranked 5th this week, moved to the top of the Big West standings after a two-match series sweep of UC San Diego last week in Honolulu. The Rainbow Warriors have won their first four conference matches and are a perfect 6-0 on the road this season. UH ranks in the top six nationally in five major statistical categories including No. 2 in kills per set (13.62) and assists per set (12.71). Setter Tread Rosenthal is No. 2 nationally in assists per set (10.98) while opposite Kristian Titriyski is No. 6 in kills per set (4.23).
All-time series: The two matches this week mark the 86th and 87th meetings all-time between the Matadors and Warriors. In the series that dates back to 1979, Hawai'i has won 64 of the previous 85 meetings which includes a 34-8 mark against CSUN in Northridge. The Matadors snapped a nine-match skid to Hawai'i with a 3-1 win at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center last season (Mar. 23, 2024).
MATADORS IN THE NATIONAL, BIG WEST RANKINGSÂ
A trio of CSUN players remained in the statistical top 10 nationally this week. Senior Donavan Constable ranks seventh in aces per set (0.54), redshirt sophomore Jalen Phillips ranks seventh in attacks per set (8.75), and freshman Stilian Delibosov is also seventh in blocks per set (1.15). Phillips is just outside the top 10 in two other categories, ranking 11th in kills per set (4.00) and 12th in points per set (4.63) while Constable is 17th this week in assists per set (9.77). As a team, CSUN ranks as high as eighth nationally in aces per set at 1.77.
Delibosov remained the Big West leader in hitting percentage this week, while also remaining second in blocking. The freshman from Bulgaria is hitting .470 with 142 kills and just 26 hitting errors on 247 swings this season. Delibosov also has a team-high 87 total blocks through 76 sets this season, including 10 solo stuffs. Sophomore libero Chris Karnezis moved up to second in the Big West in digs per set at 1.86 while Phillips ranks third in both kills per set and points per set and Constable is third in both assists and aces.
CONSTABLE CAREER ASSISTS WATCH
With 81 assists against UCSB last week, senior Donovan Constable increased his career assists total to 3,364 in 351 sets, a 9.58 career assists per set average. Constable reached another career milestone against the Gauchos, playing in his 100th career match. He 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 166 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 416 assists.
CSUN QUICK SETS
Junior Shane Nhem made an immediate impact in his first starts at middle blocker against UCSB. Nhem put down 19 kills on 28 swings to hit .607 with 14 total blocks. Nhem hit .600 (10-1-15) on Friday before hitting .615 (9-1-13) at UCSB on Saturday ... With 23 kills in two matches against UC Santa Barbara, senior Lorenzo Bertozzi is now within eight kills of reaching 400 kills in his CSUN career. Bertozzi has 392 career kills over 251 sets for a career kills oer set average of 1.56. He also reached a career milestone with his third dig against Loyola Chicago on Mar. 22, which gave him 200 career digs at CSUN ... In addition to his career assists total, Constable is now up to a season-high 44 aces this season after serving a pair against the Gauchos. Constable's previous season high was 39 set in 2024 ... With a pair of losses to No. 18 UC Santa Barbara, the Matadors are now 5-7 this season against teams ranked in the AVCA Top 20 ... With eight home wins, CSUN has already reached last season's home win total and with four matches remaining, the Matadors can post their highest home wins total since 2009. The Matadors won 14 times at home in 2009 and also reached double figures in home wins in 2010 (11-3) and 2018 (10-3). Â
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 0-4 record in 2025, the Matadors are now 15-49 (.234) in 64 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, 3-7 in 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 Hawai'i, the Matadors will close the 2025 regular season with home-and-home series' against No. 10 UC San Diego and No. 4 UC Irvine. CSUN hosts UCSD on Apr. 10 before traveling to La Jolla on Apr. 12. The Matadors then cap the regular season with a road match at UCI on Apr. 17 before hosting the Anteaters on Apr. 19.Â
#GoMatadors
