It’s been an emotionally up and down year for the CSUN women’s volleyball team. As the team goes into its final road trip of the season, CSUN head coach Aquiles Montoya wants his team to build momentum for the 2025 season.
After coming off a win in their final home game of the season, where the Matadors came from behind defeating UC Riverside in five sets. All the momentum is on CSUN to pull off some potential upsets when they go on the road this weekend with matchups against UC San Diego and Long Beach State to finish out the year.
CSUN (9-18, 4-12) will travel down to La Jolla this Friday to take on the Tritons of UC San Diego (16-11, 10-6) for the penultimate game of the year. UCSD is coming off back-to-back losses to LBSU and Hawai’i and will be looking to get back on track as they eye a season sweep against the Matadors.
At the moment the Tritons sit fifth in the conference standings, tied with UC Santa Barbara and two games over UC Irvine. And with only the top six seeds securing a bid to the Big West volleyball tournament the Matadors have the opportunity to play spoilers.
“I still want to play teams that are in the tournament and make it feel like the tournament for us,” Montoya said. “I know that they’re going to dive and put everything on the line for those last few matches.”
After Friday’s match CSUN will then travel to Long Beach to take on the Beach. LBSU (16-10, 10-6) sits as the fourth seed coming off a loss to Hawai’i and will be looking to sweep both their season series against Cal State Bakersfield and CSUN this weekend.
With CSUN taking on two teams with postseason with both having much to play for, Montoya eyes this weekend as an opportunity to build for the 2025 year especially with a majority of his roster returning next season.
“What a fantastic opportunity to roll some momentum especially with us returning 15 of 17 next year,” Montoya said. “I think a lot of times there’s beauty in road victories, there’s nothing like silencing the home crowd if it’s the other side and you’re on the road.”
With the opportunity to end the year off with some positives, Montoya ended his remarks with the same message all year.
Build for the future and show people that CSUN is figuring it out.
“Let’s build some momentum,” Montoya said. “Let’s show people that CSUN is just not always getting close, like they’re figuring it out, and they’re returning a lot of their firepower.”
The Matadors’ match against UCSD will be available for streaming on ESPN+ at 6 p.m. on Friday.
