Lynda Morales, center, and the Matadors split their final two games of the regular season last weekend. Photo Credit: Alan Fassonaki / Staff Photographer

In its final two home matches of the regular season, the Northridge women’s volleyball team pulled off a stunning five-set upset over dominating Long Beach only to drop three straight sets to Cal State Fullerton the very next night.

With the mixed results, the Matadors record now stands at 8-20 overall and 4-10 in the Big West. Northridge defeated Long Beach by scores of 25-23, 18-25, 17-25, 25-22, 18-16.

“I think that (we) played real well,” CSUN head coach Jeff Stork said. “Athletes have to deal with a lot of pressures. Some are affected at the beginning, some in the middle and some at the end. (They) did a good job handling the pressure, well, just well enough.”

Long Beach went into the Matadome Friday night as the Big West’s top-ranked team, but even with the loss its record of 17-7 and 10-4 in conference keeps them comfortably at the top.

“It felt so good (to win),” team captain Angela Hupp said. “We were so relaxed before the game … not unfocused relaxed, focused relaxed. We just played together.”

Northridge and Long Beach took turns siding out throughout the entire first set, with neither team scoring more than three consecutive points. The Matadors were able to just sideout enough times to take the set.

In sets two and three the 49ers seemed to regain some of their dominance as they outhit Northridge. The Matadors were held to a .188 and .156 hitting clip in sets two and three, while Long Beach soared to .324 and .462 in the same sets.

The pivotal fourth set resembled the first, as Northridge kept the score close up until the very end. Although they only hit .154, Long Beach swung at an even lower .118 percent.

Set five was a nail biter from the onset with the score tying 15 times and seven lead changes. The Matadors looked to finish the game with match point at 14-13, but Long Beach rallied to knot the score at 14 and send the game into overtime.

With the score tied at 16 a Niner hitting error followed by a Lynda Morales kill would hand the Matadors the victory.

“I knew the game was on the line and I had to make this play,” said Morales. “I had to put the ball down somehow.”

Caitlin Ledoux led the Beach with 21 kills and 19 digs.

For Northridge Britney Graff had 16 kills and 10 digs, Hupp had 44 assists and Monica McFarland had 19 digs.

The following night, the Matadors honored three players who would not be coming back next season. Graduating seniors Hupp and middle blocker Tela Burnett were thanked for their years of dedication by the players and coaching staff.

Junior Siara Grayson was also honored for her three seasons on the team. Due to an ongoing injury Grayson will not continue as a Matador.

The results of the match, however, were not ideal for a farewell. Fullerton defeated Northridge by scores of 26-24, 25-19, 25-18. Fullerton now stands at 8-20 overall 4-10 in conference.

In the first set Northridge looked to have a good fighting chance, coming back from deficits at 9-6 and again rallying from 21-18 to bring the Matadors back into the game. With the score knotted at 24, a Fullerton kill and block would take the set.

Sets two and three were controlled by Fullerton, with Northridge never finding a steady rhythm.

In a last ditch effort to rally some points, Hupp was moved from setting to hitting. But her efforts were a little too late. The final two points of the match were scored by Fullerton off of Hupp hitting errors.

“We didn’t flow tonight, didn’t really connect,” Hupp said. “(The) last two plays were errors by me…(I) would rather it be by me.”

Morales led Northridge with eight kills, Burnett had six kills and nine blocks.

“More than anything the passing was not up to (our standard),” Stork said. “Twelve, nine, eight kills a set is not enough. We were out of system (most) of the time.”

The Matadors will play their final two matches on the road versus Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara.

Senior Tela Burnett (12), seen here in a game against Pacific, and the Matadors lost two games on the road this weekend. Photo Credit: Camille Hislop / Staff Photographer

It was an all too familiar weekend on the road for the Northridge women’s volleyball team as they went winless against UC Riverside Friday night and again Saturday night against UC Irvine.

The Matadors dropped their seventh of the last nine five-set matches against the Highlanders after taking a two-set advantage. UC Riverside closed the match by scores of 21-25, 20-25, 31-29, 25-23, 15-12.

“We played very well,” CSUN head coach Jeff Stork said. “We had the highest side out percentage we’ve had all year. Volleyball is a three out of five sport. Riverside played just well enough in set three and set four to turn things around.”

Northridge was able to take the first two sets by comfortable point margins but the team’s inability to produce kills at critical times proved to be the match-deciding factor.

In the first two sets the Matadors hit .344 and .306, respectively, as a team, but in the later matches would not hit higher than .278, hitting an embarrassing .087 clip in the fifth set.

Four seniors led the Highlanders for the win. Outside hitter Tonbara Youpele had 21 kills and 10 digs, Dominique Cowling chipped in 15 kills and 18 digs.

Libero Amanda Nilsson led the team with 20 digs, and setter Brittney Murrey dished out 57 assists.

“We played real hard,” said CSUN team captain Angela Hupp. “We made errors at critical times.”

Britney Graff had her seventh double-double of the season with 14 kills and 14 digs, while juniors Lynda Morales (12) and Brittany Williams (17) helped to lead Northridge’s offense in kills.

Making her solo setting debut of the season Hupp notched 57 assists while junior Karina Woerhstein and Monica McFarland each had 12 digs, McFarland also had two of the team’s three aces.

Stork recently made the decision to make Hupp the lone setter over sophomore Sam Orlandini in order to allow Morales back into the middle blocking position. Northridge previously ran a 6-2 offense that would have Hupp hitting half the time, but setting the other half.

“I’m a setter at heart, but I love hitting … I never get bored,” Hupp said. “I told Jeff (Stork) I’ll do whatever the team needs me to do.”

Saturday night at UC Irvine Northridge would be given the opportunity on a few occasions to take the first two sets, but was unable to capitalize losing in three straight sets by scores of 26-24, 26-24, 25-17.

“Northridge is a very good team,” UCI head coach Paula Weishoff said prior to the match. “We know what they’re going to bring and they know what we’re going to bring. We’ll see who can execute better.”

In the first set Northridge would rally a 17-22 to give the Matadors the set’s first set point at 24-22, but two Irvine blocks and a Northridge four-contact violation would give the Anteaters the match at 26-24.

Late in the first set Williams was injured after coming off a crucial kill and would sit out the rest of the match.

The second set looked identical to the first, only the first set point was for the Anteaters. A kill by CSUN middle blocker Chelsea Johnson would tie the score at 24, but back-to-back Irvine kills closed the set at 26-24.

Irvine controlled much of set three and with the score at 16-13 the Matadors would only score four more points and the Anteaters would run away with the game 25-17.

“We’re playing very good volleyball,” Stork said. “Like tonight pushing it to two deux points … I’m proud of what they did.”

Morales had 11 kills and Hupp had seven kills, 17 assists and nine digs. Graff added six kills and eight digs, while Orlandini had 11 assists.

Juliane Piggot led Irvine with 18 kills, and Larissa Nordyke added 11. Taryn Robertson had 38 assists.

Northridge will host Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State next weekend at the Matadome in its last home conference games of the season.

For anyone who was at the Matadome Tuesday night, it would seem that the women’s volleyball team had won their first Big West match of the season. However, the reality is the Matadors were handed their fifth loss in the last six matches by the No. 23 UC Irvine (14-3, 4-1 Big West) by scores of 22-25, 22-25, 25-15 and 23-25.

“We’re disappointed about the results,” said CSUN head coach Jeff Stork. “But if you look at how we played it was a very good match for us.”

Even with another triple-double from setter/outside hitter Angela Hupp, Northridge (4-12, 0-3) was unable to come back from a 2-1 set deficit. Hupp had 14 kills to compliment her 20 assists and 11 digs. Right-side hitter, Lynda Morales, chipped 10 kills of her own to go along with middle blocker Chelsea Johnson’s six blocks, two of which were solo. Setter Sam Orlandini dished out 19 sets for kills and libero Monica McFarland led with 15 digs and two aces.

On the other side of the net outside hitter, Juliane Piggott led the Anteaters with 15 kills. Just behind her was outside hitter Kari Pestolesi with 14 kills and 17 digs. Setter Taryn Robeterson had 41 assists and 4 aces.

In set one the Matadors did a good job of keeping the game close with long rallies and quick sideouts. The scored tied six times with only one lead change. The biggest lead went to the Anteaters at 14-10. But a kill by Morales would bring Northridge back within three. After an Irvine kill, and with the score at 19-18 in favor of the Anteaters, the Matadors trailed by one until a Pestoseli kill would close the set at 25-22.

The second set was another nail biter, but this time the Matadors struggled to find the rhythm they had gained in the first set. Irvine jumped out to a 6-3 lead before the dizzying game of “who could side-out first” began. With the score at 24-22 a Johnson hitting error would give the Anteaters a 2-0 set advantage.

Northridge gave Irvine a run for their money in the third set when they pulled out to an 11-8 spurred by back-to-back Anteater hitting errors. Irvine head coach Paula Weishoff was forced to use both her time-outs during a 6-0 run care of the Matadors. A CSUN block would dig the Anteaters into a deeper hole. Irvine was never able to recover and lost the match 25-15.

Set four was much like the first two sets, in that Irvine was able to jump out to an early lead making the Matadors play catch up the entire match. A scorebook error combined with a replay call after the ball got stuck in the rafters, made for slight entertainment, but in the end Northridge was unable to pull through yet again.

Even with McFarland serving six straight points to bring the score within one at 17-18, a few CSUN hitting errors and even more Irvine kills ended the match for the Matadors.

“Even though it wasn’t a win, it’s what we needed,” said Hupp about the loss. “How we played together, it was all about heart…we just need a couple more kills and a couple more aces.”

For Morales, the sentiment is clearly the same.

“Overall, we played so much better tonight. We came together and played for each other,” the right-side hitter said.

Martha Primera After a disappointing 2008 Big West season, CSUN has high hopes for 2009.

The Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team (4-8) will travel north this weekend as it kicks off Big West Conference play with matches against the Aggies of UC Davis (9-5) and the Pacific Tigers (10-1).

The Matadors are coming off of a split weekend, with a five-set loss to Fresno State (just days after a match against Loyola Marymount with the same result) balanced out by a three-game sweep over Portland.

“Fresno and LMU got away from us,” CSUN head coach Jeff Stork said.  “Davis and Pacific will be a challenge for us, but the girls have trained hard.”

First up, the Matadors will match up against Davis on Friday. Last season the Aggies swept CSUN in three sets in both of the teams’ meetings.

But the Aggies welcomed freshman outside hitter Allison Whitson this season; Whitson is currently leading the team in kills with 156 (.195) and has contributed 35 total blocks. Sophomore middle blocker Betsy Sedlak tops the Davis blocks list with 55, 11 of which she acquired solo.

Davis also brings back junior outside hitter Kayla Varney who has 141 (.134) kills this season. Varney also boasts 163 digs, ranking her second on the team just after senior libero Avreet Singh (197 digs to go with 13 aces). Another Aggie to watch is senior setter Carson Lowden, who has tallied 502 assists and 12 aces. The CSUN match will mark Davis’ first home game of the season.

Saturday, the Matadors will be faced with another tough opponent. The Tigers have only lost one match so far, and that was to No. 5 Florida. In their first meeting of 2008 the Matadors defeated the Tigers in four sets, but fell in just three sets to Pacific during the two teams’ second meeting.

“We’re in conference now, we’re 4-8 in non-conference play and I thought we had a tough non-conference schedule,” said Stork, when asked about Pacific’s 10-1 record. “The strength of the schedule is what’s important.”

Leading the pack for Pacific is a trio of hitters whose statistics are almost identical in the kills and digs department. Senior outside hitter Mallori Gibson leads the team with 133 kills (.297) and 23 aces, with junior outside hitter Svenja Engelhardt hot on Gibson’s heels with 130 kills (.275) and 18 aces.

Playing the supporting roles for the Tigers are senior setter Olivia Riley who has set 421 balls for kills, defensive specialist/setter Dancyne Kama with 168 digs and senior middle blocker Masha Vaysburg who leads in blocks with 33.

The Matadors have been practicing tirelessly since their loss against Fresno in preparation for the start of conference play.  They are still trying to build on strengthening their side-out and transition scoring.

Angela Hupp still leads the Matadors in kills, with Britney Graff and Brittany Williams stepping up into significant supporting roles.

“We have three to four players hitting in double digits right now which is really good,” Stork said. Last year we depended mostly on Angela.”

Still, with the uncertainty of injuries that CSUN has been plagued with this season, and the inconvenience of furloughs leaving the coaching staff sparse, the Matadors will have to work extra hard this weekend.

“We look at how we can eliminate errors and generate more offense,” Stork said.  “Our serve-block defense is really good and we’re scoring at a good rate, 45 percent … it starts with the first contact. First contact is important this weekend. But I’m still confident in scoring points.”

The Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team (3-6) will play its home debut on Friday. But tonight, they have one last road match, against Loyola Marymount University (7-3) at the Gersten Pavilion in Los Angeles.  After a mixed weekend at the Nike Cougar Challenge, the Matadors hope to bounce back against the Lions.

CSUN and LMU have so far had two common opponents, Idaho and Boise.  Both teams were able to defeat Boise, but LMU finished the Broncos off in four sets while it only took the Matadors three sets.  As for Idaho, CSUN swept them in three sets last weekend, while the Lions were unable to finish the deed in five sets.

But these results against common opponents have not changed how the Matadors will approach going into Tuesday’s match, however.

“When you start comparing who you beat you’re losing sight of what day it is,”  CSUN head coach Jeff Stork said.  “On any given day you have to come out and play; (those wins) doesn’t mean we’re going to beat LMU.”

The Matadors need to be prepared, also, because the Lions have only lost three matches this season, while the Matadors are the not-so-proud owners of a 3-6 record.
Sophomore outside hitter/middle blocker Ariana Convington leads the LMU attack: Convington has 89 kills, 14 blocks and 68 digs for the season.  A diverse hitter, Convington gives the Lions a chance to mix up the line up as well as the opportunity to throw off the defense.

Alongside Convington is six-foot-one-inch junior middle blocker Becky Stehling, who leads the team in blocks with 22.

“Our serve-block defense is really good,” Stork said in regards to adjusting his lineup to match up to LMU’s versatile players. “We just need to find a match-up that works for us. You beat the team, not a player.”