A look back at the 2009 Matador season

By Kerstin Gupilan
November 23rd, 2009
Section: Sports

The Matadors finished the 2009 season with an 8-22 record. Photo Credit: Alan Fassonaki / Staff Photographer

The Matadors finished the 2009 season with an 8-22 record. Photo Credit: Alan Fassonaki / Staff Photographer

When CSUN’s women’s volleyball team kicked off the 2009 season in late August by placing second in the Bronco Invitational in Boise, Idaho, the prospects for the rest of season seemed high.

But the following weekend, during the Asics/Coca-Cola Invitational hosted by the University of San Francisco, CSUN lost all three of their matches.

Northridge finished preseason tournament play at the Nike Cougar Challenge in Pullman, Wash., with mixed results.

Thus began a season-long trend of hard-fought battles and inconsistency with very few actual victories.

“We did well on paper,” said senior Tela Burnett. “We performed well, we just didn’t win.”

“At the tournament in Boise (we) played really well … we showed what we could do this season,” junior Lynda Morales said. “We set the standard really high … we just fell a little short.”

The Matadors continued preseason play with matches at Loyola Marymount University, which they lost in five sets, a home loss to Fresno State and a home victory against Portland.

From late September to early October, CSUN hit a five-match slump containing three five-set heartbreakers against UC Davis, CSU Bakersfield and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

During the lull, senior outside hitter/setter and team captain Angela Hupp recorded her first triple-double of the season, eleventh in her career, in the loss to Bakersfield.

Pulling themselves from the midseason five-match losing streak, the Matadors had back-to-back wins against UC Riverside and CSU Fullerton, both in four sets. The victory at Fullerton marked Northridge’s first conference road match win.

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  • Kobe sucks

    Whoever Kester is, she’s wrong about the Sundial not doing features on individual players. There are always features on players. They even do ones from the women’s volleyball team despite their obvious sucking.

  • Kester

    First of all thanks Kerstin for reporting the results on the women’s volleyball team and doing a feature on senior Angela Hupp. I will say that I was surprised to see an article on an individual player – something that the campus newspaper has not done in the past three years and before 2006 the Daily Sundial never did it at all. Maybe just maybe whoever will report on women’s volleyball next year will write up on up and coming players, the seniors on the team or a player who stands out match after match. Maybe even have an interivew with the head coach whoever he or she will be next year(we’re all assuming that Coach Stork will be around).

    At the middle of the season there could have been article about their progress report or lack of it even though some of the players told you that they were practicing hard for upcoming matches and yet the end result was a defeat. As a reporter while observing the matches you should have mentioned something about how they’re playing. Were they playing aggressive, passive, smart, lack of concentration, was the team playing together, confidence or no confidence – body language says it all. In addittion you also should have talked to some of the fans and asked them what they thought of the team and if they were at ease at the team results or getting patient and annoyed that we were to have a repeat season like the past two years. Going in that direction is different but it would make an interesting article.

    You did hit it right on the nail describing this season as inconsistent and it was but mostly it was just downright horrible. What was missing in this and past articles was why this team was having another losing season – was it due to coaching, players abilities or certain players. Many felt that there was a couple of players who were a handicap to the team in fact she’s in this picture.

    It really is too bad how this season turned out. Very frustrating to watch and cheer for a CSUN team having a D season for the third year in a row.