It took a while and certainly a lot of shortcomings, but the CSUN Matador softball team finally registered that elusive second Big West Conference win. After staying with the undefeated Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs for the first two games on Saturday, only to come a tad short in the end, the Matadors came back to win the rubber match in dramatic fashion, winning the final game 7-6 in the bottom of the seventh, handing Cal Poly its first conference loss.

If it’s mid-April, it must mean the CSUN Matador men’s volleyball team is embarking on another postseason run. For the sixth straight year, the Matadors will compete in the Mountain-Pacific Sports Federation playoffs. This year, Northridge, seeded seventh in the MPSF playoffs will start in its own confines, as it hosts the eighth-seeded USC Trojans at the Matadome in the play-in round tonight at 7 p.

The eighth-ranked CSUN Matador men’s volleyball team will have to wait until its regular season finale to clinch a spot in the Mountain-Pacific Sports Federation playoffs. For the second straight match, Northridge saw its playoff chances dashed by another opponent, and it was the top-ranked Pepperdine Waves that delayed the Matadors’ postseason aspirations, as the Waves defeated the Matadors in straight sets at Firestone Fieldhouse by scores of 30-25, 30-28 and 30-25.

Saturday’s match up with the USC Trojans at the Lyon Center carried playoff implications for the CSUN Matador men’s volleyball team, though those implications weren’t as big as they could’ve been, much to CSUN’s delight. With BYU knocking out Pacific out of the Mountain-Pacific Sports Federation playoff picture with a two game sweep over the weekend, all that was left for the Matadors and Trojans to determine Saturday night was who would host a play-in game between the two teams Wednesday night.

The good news for the CSUN softball team: they’ve been knocking the ball out of the park over the Spring Break. In its first six Big West Conference games, all on the road, the Matadors have hit a total of eight home runs. In fact, this past weekend against the Cal State Fullerton Titans, three different Matadors circled the bases in two of those three games and the Matadors hit a total of seven home runs off Titan pitching.

The seventh-ranked CSUN Matador men’s volleyball team started out its spring break in a good way, defeating the Stanford Cardinal and the Pacific Tigers, both in four games in its final two 2007 home matches at the Matadome. Northridge stumbled in its trip up the 101 North to UC Santa Barbara, as the fifth-ranked Gauchos took down the Matadors in straight sets by scores of 30-24, 31-29 and 30-21.

The 10th ranked CSUN Matador men’s volleyball team showed it wasn’t afraid of the third ranked BYU Cougars this past weekend. The Matadors made a statement right away, winning the first match in four games by scores of 30-27, 30-17, 21-30 and 30-27 on Friday night and the following night, threatened to pull off an improbable two-match sweep of the Cougars, winning the first game 30-27, but ultimately, the Cougars were not to be denied, as it won the final three games by scores of 32-30, 30-28 and 30-28 to salvage the split.

The Matadors snapped their eight game losing streak with a 9-3 win over Loyola Marymount University on Tuesday. Northridge depended on their consistent first baseman, Jorge Andrade Jr., who went 3 for 4 and is batting .385 for the season. Edwin Quirarte got his second win of the season, improving to 2-3.

Coming off a rough weekend in the aloha state, the 10th-ranked CSUN Matador men’s volleyball team looks to get back on the right track this weekend, as it hosts the third-ranked Brigham Young Cougars for two games at the Matadome this weekend. “We’re looking forward to it,” head coach Jeff Campbell said of facing BYU.