California State University at Northridge
Cal State LA
CSUN Closes Home Season Tuesday vs. Cal State LA, Bakersfield
4/7/2025 12:06:00 PM | Beach Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK:
Tuesday, Apr. 8, 2025
CSUN Beach Volleyball Complex - Northridge, Calif.
CSUN vs. Cal State LAÂ - 10Â a.m.
CSUN vs. Cal State Bakersfield - 2 p.m.
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNBeach
FORÂ STARTERS
The CSUN Beach Volleyball team (14-13) plays its final two home dual matches of the season on Tuesday, welcoming Cal State LA and Cal State Bakersfield to the CSUN Beach Volleyball Complex in Northridge. Prior to the 2 p.m. match against CSUB, the Matadors will honor their five seniors (Layla Cederlind, Sophia Jarosz, Tasha Mae, Tia Mendiola, Jadin Williams) who will play on the home sand for the final time. The Matadors opened the final month of the season last Saturday, earning their first true road win of the 2025 season in a 3-2 win over CSUB in Bakersfield.Â
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
Follow CSUN Matadors' beach volleyball online at the official home of CSUN athletics, www.GoMatadors.com. For road matches, related links to the match, including any live stats, audio, and video, will be posted before the match on the beach volleyball schedule page of GoMatadors.com.Â
Fans are also encouraged to check the CSUN Athletics Department's official Twitter feed (@GoMatadors) and the beach volleyball-specific feed (@CSUNBeach) for news and notes throughout the week as well as updates of matches in progress.
SENIOR DAY ON TUESDAY
CSUN will honor its five seniors, Layla Cederlind, Sophia Jarosz, Tasha Mae, Tia Mendiola, and Jadin Williams, in a brief ceremony prior to the 2 p.m. home finale against Cal State Bakersfield on Tuesday.  Cederlind and Williams have been part of the CSUN beach program since 2022, with Cederlind tied for ninth in program history with 44 career individual wins. She finished 13-5 in 2023, 9-10 in 2022, and 9-14 in 2024. This season, Cederlind has 13 wins playing with Maleya Miles. Williams has 16 career wins, including 10 during the 2022 season. Mae, 11-15 so far in her third season at CSUN in 2025, also has 44 career wins after finishing 17-16 in 2023 and 16-20 in 2024. Jarosz and Mendiola both complete their second season playing with the Matadors in 2025. Mendiola, who is tied for third on the team with 14 wins this season, has 19 career wins while Jarosz has 16 career wins after posting 12 wins in 2024 and four in 2025.
HEFLIN CLOSES IN ON SINGLE-SEASON INDIVIDUAL WINS RECORD
Freshman Hannah Heflin remains one win away from tying the single-season individual wins record of 21. With 20 wins this season - 15 with Dylan Hall, 3 with Morgan Gillinger, 1 with Maleya Miles, and 1 with Jarosz - Heflin has tied Kailey Klein, who notched 20 wins in 2022. Gabriela Griego and Abbey Sweeting in 2023 and Victoria Rogers in 2022 each won 21 times to share the single-season program record. Hall and Heflin have won 15 of their 18 matches this season and are unbeaten at No. 5 (4-0). The pair suffered their first loss in the No. 3 pair (2-1) after falling to Cal State Bakersfield on Saturday. The duo have also played 11 times at No. 4 and are 9-2 heading into Tuesday's tri-dual at home.
MATADOR BEACH NOTES
In addition to Hall and Heflin's team-leading 15 wins, three other pairs have reached double figures in wins for the Matadors. Miles and Cederlind rank second with 13 wins, followed by Mae and Kinley Lindhardt and Mendiola and Julia Bazylevych who have 11 wins apiece ... CSUN is 8-4 on its home sand with two more dual matches ... CSUN has played 21 different pairs combinations this season, one behind the record of 22 different pairs combinations in 2024. 19 different pairs combinations partnered up in 2022 and CSUN used 18 in 2023.
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
Cal State LA (2-8)Â closes its season on Tuesday in Northridge. The Golden Eagles have dropped four straight since picking up their second win of the season, 3-2 over Life Pacific on Feb. 28. Cal State LA's other win came over Hope International (3-2) at CSUN on Feb. 22.
Series: The Matadors and Golden Eagles have met 16 times dating back to 2016. CSUN has never lost to Cal State LA in the series with 10 of the previous 16 matches ending in 5-0 decisions. The two teams met in the 2025 season opener on Feb. 22 with the Matadors winning 5-0.
Cal State Bakersfield (8-14) has dropped six consecutive matches heading to Northridge on Tuesday. The 'Runners capped their home season with a 3-2 loss to the Matadors on Saturday. Prior to Saturday, CSUB won its opener of the 2025 Big West Challenge (Mar. 21-22), defeating Sacramento State (3-2) before dropping its final five matches. CSUB's Ella Erteltova and Vivi Kaelin posted their 45th career win against Mendiola and Bazylevych on Saturday to improve to 18-4 on the season.
Series: Tuesday's dual match is the 36th meeting all-time between CSUN and Cal State Bakersfield, dating back to 2014. The Matadors, 3-0 against the Roadrunners this season, now hold a 20-15 edge in the series and have won six of the last eight between the two teams after picking up a trio of 3-2 wins this season (Mar. 5, Mar. 22, Apr. 5).
CSUN BEACH VOLLEYBALL HISTORY
The Matadors are 130-146 (.471) all-time in their 12th season of beach volleyball, including a 79-41 (.658) record on their home sand. After setting a program record for single-season wins with 17 in 2018, the Matadors matched that total with a 17-17 overall record in 2022 and a 17-16 record in 2023. CSUN also came within one victory of equaling the season mark in both 2019 (16-12) and last year (16-21).
Head coach Ari Homayun has led the Matadors to 47 wins in her two-plus seasons, finishing 17-16 in 2023, 16-21 in 2024, and 14-13 so far in 2025. She now needs just two wins to surpass Noelle Rooke (48 wins from 2018-21) as the program leader in coaching wins.
BIG WEST BEACH VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
The 2025 season marks CSUN's 12th season of beach volleyball and its 10th season as a member of the Big West. The Matadors, who will host the 2025 Championship at Ocean Park Courts in Santa Monica (Ap3. 24-25), are 7-17 all-time in the Big West Beach Volleyball Championship since the inaugural championship in 2016. The postseason championship was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
At last season's conference championship at KLAC Beach Complex in Long Beach, CSUN fell to top-seeded Cal Poly (5-0), No. 4-seed UC Davis (3-2), and No. 2-seed Long Beach State (5-0).
At the 2023 Big West Championship, held at Queen's Beach in Hawai'i, the Matadors finished in fifth place after winning one of three matches. CSUN, seeded sixth, opened with a 3-2 loss to UC Davis before staving off elimination with a 3-2 win over Sacramento State. The Matadors then fell to Cal Poly (3-2) in an elimination match and finished the championship with a 1-2 record.
CSUN also finished fifth at both the 2021 and 2022 Big West Championships. At Cal Poly's Swanson Beach Volleyball Complex in 2022, the Matadors opened with a 5-0 loss to Cal Poly before staving off elimination with a 4-1 win over Sacramento State. CSUN then fell to UC Davis in an elimination match and finished the championship with a 1-2 record. At Rosie's Dog Beach in 2021, the championship finished in a similar formula for the Matadors. CSUN opened with a 5-0 loss to Hawai'i before sweeping Sacramento State, 5-0. CSU Bakersfield then eliminated the Matadors in a close 3-2 final.
The Matadors were the No. 4 seed in the seven-team field at the 2019 Big West Tournament at Zuma Beach in Malibu. CSUN finished 2-2 in the championship tournament, their best showing since also finishing 2-2 in the inaugural conference tournament in 2016. After winning two of three matches on the opening day, CSUN came up empty against No. 3 seed Long Beach State on Saturday and was the fourth squad eliminated from the tournament. Cal Poly, the No. 2 seed, went undefeated in four tournament matches to capture its first conference championship along with the Big West's automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. Hawai'i, the top seed coming in, finished second.
At the 2018 championship in Hawai'i, the Matadors were seeded fourth in the six-team field in but were upset by fifth-seeded CSU Bakersfield in the opening round (3-2). CSUN then fell to No. 2 seed Cal Poly in an elimination match (5-0).Â
The Matadors were also seeded fourth at the 2017 Big West Tournament held at Pismo Beach but fell to Sacramento State (3-2) and Cal Poly (5-0) in their two tournament matches.Â
In 2016, CSUN was the third seed in the inaugural conference tournament before finishing 2-2 including a close 3-2 loss to Cal Poly in a third-round elimination match at Huntington Beach.
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