Men’s basketball

The CSUN men’s basketball team ended its season with just seven wins and went winless on the road this year. The team ended with 25 losses. The Matadors have not had more than 24 losses since the 2017-18 season. After winning the first game of the season, the Matadors went on a five-game losing streak. CSUN’s longest losing streak was eight games, all against Big West Conference opponents.

The team was led by head coach Trent Johnson. Guard Atin Wright led the team in scoring and was the go-to bucket getter for the Matadors, averaging 16.7 points per game. In the last two weeks of the season, CSUN faced CSU Bakersfield twice, once in the regular season and once in the Big West Tournament. Northridge won the first game handedly after taking a 12-point lead in the first half. Bakersfield sought vengeance in the Big West Tournament and made a late comeback to knock the Matadors out of the tournament and end their season.

Johnson has since retired, Wright has transferred to Drake University and other stat leaders have left as well. Forward Fidelis Okereke committed to CSU Bakersfield and guard Dionte Bostick entered the transfer portal as well.

Women’s basketball

Men and women’s basketball had similar seasons, as they each finished with seven wins. The women’s team finished with 24 losses, which included a nine-game losing skid. Head coach Carlene Mitchell finished her first full season as a non-interim head coach for the Matadors with the team finishing with its worst record since the 2015-16 season.

Guard Jordyn Jackson and forward Tess Amundsen were the players Mitchell had to rely on the most. Amundsen was the Matadors’ leading scorer with 14 points per game, and Jackson right behind her at 12.6 per game. Amundsen is a sharpshooter for the team, shooting 48.5% on 101 total shots from beyond the arc.

The Matadors fell in an eerily similar way to their male counterparts. The team played CSU Bakersfield twice in the final two weeks of the season. In the first meeting, the Matadors won a thriller in overtime, but the Roadrunners answered in the Big West Tournament, knocking CSUN out in the first round. The Matadors went scoreless for five minutes in the fourth quarter while allowing Bakersfield to score 13 straight points and take the lead in the final minute of the game. With most players returning to the team, the Matadors look to build on their underwhelming season.

Women’s beach volleyball

The Matadors beach volleyball team finished its season with a record of 17-16. The team started its season with a loss followed by a three-game win streak, which was only the start of their back-and-forth season.

The team consisted of mainly upperclassmen with only three of the 15 athletes being freshmen and sophomores. Led by associate head coach Ari Homayun and director of women’s volleyball John Price, the team struggled in the Bigger West Invitational, winning only one of the six games. Immediately after the invitational, the squad won three straight.

Abbey Sweeting and Gabriela Griego led the team in wins as a pair with 20. The reliable duo had a great season playing with each other as they kept the Matadors alive in many contests.

The team finished its season by traveling to Hawaii for the Big West Championship, but had a short stay after dropping two of the three games on the first day of the competition.

Men’s track and field

CSUN men’s track and field had an impressive season, led by head coach Justin Johnson.

The season started with four indoor meets, which included a record-breaking meet for the Matadors in New Mexico. Freshman Logan Davis broke his own school record for the 60-meter with a time of 6.71 seconds. He and three teammates broke the school record in the 4×400 by just over a quarter of a second.

The outdoor season saw multiple school records reset as well. At the West Coast Relays, the men’s 4×100-meter record was reset from 39.86 seconds to 39.68. At the Beach Invitational, Daniel Rodriguez won the 1500-meter race with a time of 3 minutes, 54.50 seconds. Out of 39 throwers, Elijah Ignacio finished 11th in the discus throw for the Bryan Clay Invitational.

Multiple Matadors earned Big West track and field athlete of the week honors. Most recently, James Crawford and Bryson Williams secured honors in early May after a couple of great performances at the Steve Scott Invitational. Crawford ran the 200-meter in 21.03 seconds, which is the second fastest time for a CSUN freshman in the event. Williams finished second in the triple jump and sixth in the long jump to earn his honors. Williams is now top 10 in both events in the Big West Conference.

The team competed in the Big West Championship on May 12 and 13, and earned fifth place while winning two events. Davis ran the second fastest 400-meter in school history to win the competition, and Williams had the third longest triple jump by a freshman in CSUN history.

Williams, along with David Phillips Jr., who competes in the 200-meter, and the 4×100-meter relay team, ran in the NCAA track regional. Williams finished 38th in the triple jump, while Phillips ran 21.07 to finish 30th of 48 in the 200-meter. The 4×100-meter relay team finished 22nd with a time of 39.82, the fourth fastest in CSUN history. None of CSUN’s athletes were able to qualify for the NCAA Championships.

Men’s golf

The men’s golf team played in 11 invitationals over the course of its season. They finished off with a trip to the Big West Championships, where they claimed fourth place of the nine teams at the event.

The eight-man team, led by head coach Jim Bracken, finished in the top three four times in the regular season.

The highlight of the season came on October 10 and 11 when the Matadors won the Bill Cullum Invitational in Valencia. The team finished first out of 10 teams and needed only 852 strokes. Another highlight was the UC Santa Barbara Collegiate on April 10 and 11 when the team finished second out of 12 and took 586 strokes to get through 36 holes.

Seniors Eirik Thomassen and Felix Schrott led the team, each claiming one individual title. Thomassen had the best stroke average on the team at 71.46 per round, with Schrott not far behind with 71.73 per round.

The Matadors went into the Big West Championship feeling like they had a chance to win the tournament. The team tied for the win in the first of the three rounds in La Quinta, California. After the first day, the Matadors dropped to third through two rounds before finishing the tournament in fourth.

Coach Bracken completed his 37th season. Six of the eight golfers are seniors, so the 2023-24 squad will likely look a lot different than it did this year.

Softball

The CSUN softball season has just wrapped up. The season started slow with the squad participating in five invitationals and losing 12 of the 20 games.

The Matadors started conference play scorching hot, winning seven of their first 10 games, but a four-game skid slowed them down. The team looked like it was going to end below .500 on the season until their series against CSU Bakersfield and UC San Diego, where they swept both teams.

Allie Gardiner has been Northridge’s most reliable pitcher with a record of 5-2 on the season. Gardiner leads the team in appearances with 28 and has a 2.87 ERA in those games. Shaylan Whatman leads the team in runs and home runs with 33 and five respectively.

The Matadors extended their win streak to nine when they swept UC Santa Barbara in their final regular season series. Their season ended with losses to Maryland and San Jose State in the National Invitational Softball Championship.

Men’s volleyball

The men’s volleyball team started the 2023 season strong as they rolled out to a 12-5 record before ending on an 11-game losing streak and exiting the Big West Tournament in the first round.

The journey they took to get there was filled with highs and lows. After the first nine games of the season, the team was 4-5. The Matadors pulled off an upset in their tenth game of the season when they beat No. 6 Stanford in five sets at home. The victory sparked an eight-game winning streak for CSUN. The victories stretched to the East Coast as they beat Princeton, NJIT and Fairleigh Dickinson, and included another upset win against Stanford.

CSUN peaked midway through the season when they were ranked 14th nationally and had a 12-5 record. A March loss at home against UC San Diego snapped the winning streak and all momentum the team had accumulated. The Matadors went on to lose 11 games in a row in five weeks. Theo Edwards’ squad ended the season 12-16 overall with a 1-9 conference record, and finished last in the Big West.

Redshirt junior Kyle Hobus made the All-Big West first team, while junior Griffin Walters was given an honorable mention.

Women’s water polo

The women’s water polo team came into the ultra-competitive Big West Conference with less experience than most teams. The squad had zero seniors on the roster. What the team lacked in experience it made up for in coaching as Matt Warshaw entered his seventh season as head coach. The season featured seven different tournaments and 30 matches.

The team dominated in three of the tournaments as they did not lose any of their six matches. The Matadors won both games at the Beach Invite, the Cal Lutheran Invitational and the Redlands Invitational. The team struggled in conference play, going 1-6 to finish seventh in the Big West.

Sophomore Dorottya Telek scored 101 goals to break the CSUN single-season record, which was previously held by Whitney Delgado who scored 80 goals 13 years ago.

Baseball

The 2023 baseball season just wrapped up for CSUN. Even though the Matadors finished with a .667 win percentage, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee did not place them into the field of 64 in the national tournament.

CSUN’s baseball team has held its own in the Big West this season, finishing in third place out of the 11 teams in the conference. The team took all three games in its last series against CSU Bakersfield between May 25-27, giving the Matadors their most wins in a season since 2002. First-year head coach Eddie Cornejo had his team finish one game back of a Big West Conference title.

The team has a 34-17 record with a .667 winning percentage. The recipe for this success is a conference-leading batting average of .311. They also rank second in RBIs with 360 and have a slugging percentage of .472 in the Big West. The pitching staff has been great as well, giving up the fourth fewest earned runs and the fewest hits in the conference, while holding an ERA of 4.72.

Now that the season is over, the Matadors will have plenty of time to reflect on where they finished and figure out how to build on their positive record.

Women’s golf

Michelle Winkler had an eventful 2022-23 season, turning her interim head coach title into a head coach job in November.

The roster has zero seniors and only one junior. The lack of experience on the roster and coaching staff showed as the team struggled throughout the season, finishing last in five events.

The season highlight came at the Utah Tech Trailblazer Invitational on February 13 and 14. The team finished second through 36 holes with a total score of 612. The best team finish of the year also featured the best individual performance from freshman Gracie Piar as the Matadors captured their first individual championship since 2018.

The 2023-24 team will have a lot more experience with another season under its belt, giving hope for the CSUN women’s golf future.

Women’s track and field

The women’s track and field season just finished with a ninth place in the Big West Championship. The season was highlighted by a record-breaking performance from redshirt junior Arianna Alexander, who broke the CSUN 60-meter record with a time of 7.43 seconds at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. invitational in Albuquerque. Alexander continuously set records in the 60-meter, 100-meter and 200-meter throughout the season.

Other standout performances include Charne-Lee Olkers setting her personal best in the 100-meter hurdles at the Bulldog Classic, where she won the event in 14.01 seconds, and Nicole Contreras finishing the 5000-meter in the fourth fastest time by a CSUN freshman.

The women’s track and field team finished the season with the Big West Championship, where the 4×100-meter relay team became the first CSUN team to win the event since 2015. They finished with a time of 45.33 seconds. However, the Matadors were unable to make the NCAA West preliminary round.

Women’s tennis

The women’s tennis team arguably had the most successful season of any CSUN squad this year. Not only did they finish with a 17-7 overall record, the best of any team in the Big West, but they also made the inaugural NIT women’s tennis championship.

The program had the longest win streak of any Matadors team this season when they won nine straight in a stretch that spanned most of February and March. They recorded five 7-0 shutouts throughout their stellar season.

The Matadors had four athletes make an all-conference team this year. Jolene Coetzee and Angela Ho made the All-Big West first team for doubles thanks to their team-leading 12-5 record as a pairing. Yuliia Zhytelna and Sasha Turchak received an honorable mention in the doubles category, as they went 14-8 on the season. In singles play, Turchak and Zhytelna made the second team while Coetzee earned an honorable mention. Zhytelna won 15 of her 20 singles matches this season, while Turchak won 12. Coetzee faltered without her doubles teammate as she won only seven.

In the Big West Championship, the Matadors defeated UC Santa Barbara 4-2 in the first round before falling 4-0 to Cal Poly in the quarterfinals.

The Matadors finished their season at the NIT championship, which took place in Peachtree City, Georgia on May 17. The CSUN women’s tennis team lost 4-1 to Stetson.