In their chase for greatness, the CSUN men’s volleyball team faced an uphill challenge against the No. 1 Long Beach State.
LBSU snapped CSUN’s eight-game-winning streak as they walked into the Premier America Credit Union Arena and dominated with a 3-0 sweep.
Although the team suffered their first loss in over a month, CSUN head coach Theo Edwards believes the result speaks of his team’s resilience.
“I think we’re incredibly resilient. You know, there were moments in that match where Long Beach threw some really challenging things at us and made us really earn it,” Edwards said.
Edwards followed up by mentioning how big the game environment was for the young guys on the squad.
“I felt like, especially for our young guys, this was, this was a lot for them, a big match for Stillian, Moni Nikolov is his teammate in Bulgaria and so they compete together,” Edwards said.
“I think there was a lot of emotion that was surrounding this match, specifically.”
The first set was a competitive back-and-forth spectacle between two top-ranked teams.
The Beach took an early 5-2 lead, but CSUN setter Donovan Constable followed up with two aces to help go on a 7-2 run, forcing LBSU to call their first timeout as the crowd jumped out of their seats and roared in excitement for the home squad.
After the timeout, both teams continued to battle. However, when LBSU scored three consecutive points to reduce the deficit to three, 18-15, CSUN was compelled to take a timeout. The Matadors continued to fight, at one point bringing the score as close as 24-22, but the surge was a little too late, as LBSU took the first set 25-22.
A clear shift occurred between the two teams as the second set began. LBSU intensified their performance, starting the set with an early 10-4 lead.
What seemed to be a momentum changer in the set when outside hitter Lorenzo Bertozzi served an ace, cutting the deficit to 13-8. LBSU stamped their imprint by overwhelming CSUN in a 25-15 victory, leaving the Matadors on the brink of a sweep.
Edwards believes the shift from the first to the second set begins with the team getting comfortable.
“Part of it was starting to get comfortable. The other was Long Beach turned it up. They turned it up from the service line, either a couple of serves that money hit that were pushing 80. And so I thought they did a fantastic job there,” Edwards said.
CSUN came into the third set more urgently, keeping it competitive. With the set tied 8-8, LBSU scored the following three points, forcing the Matadors to take a timeout. CSUN never recovered from that small run, as an error from Constable allowed LBSU to complete the sweep 25-20.
Throughout the match, CSUN was forced to use all their timeouts, with libero Chris Karnezis saying the Matadors got in their head too often against the top-ranked Beach.
“It was just, let’s play our game like it felt like we were trying to change some small things. I think we lost on the details. And so Coach [Edwards] was just reminding us like we know what we’re doing, let’s just get back to Matador volleyball and play our game,” Karnezis said.
CSUN reflected on their loss and got a shot at redemption against LBSU on Friday, March 14.
“We have one week to prepare to play Long Beach again. So we’re gonna work in practice, and fix those couple mistakes that we have… and we’re gonna come back on Friday,” Bertozzi said.
The Matadors will host Princeton on Thursday, March 12, at 6 p.m., taking a break from conference play. They aim to get back in the win column. The game will be available on ESPN+.
