The Matadors received a total of 41 kills from freshman Mahina Haina over the weekend as they won their first tournament of the season at the UNLV Classic in Las Vegas.

CSUN (6-7) went a perfect 3-0 by beating UNLV on Friday, Xavier and San Jose State on Saturday. 

CSUN vs. UNLV

Behind Haina’s match-high 14 kills, CSUN recorded its first straight sets victory of the season, beating the Rebels on Friday (25-11, 25-17, 25-18).

“She’s extremely good offensively,” head coach Jeff Stork said about Haina’s performance. “She was our go-to player of the weekend, coming off very aggressive.”

The Matadors only trailed twice the whole match.

“UNLV is a little unorthodox but we handled them very well having a good scouting plan going in,” Stork said.

CSUN vs. Xavier 

The Matadors dropped their first set against Xavier (7-5) but bounce back to win in four sets (23-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-18) on Saturday morning. 

Several players contributed to the comeback win. 

Junior setter Sam Orlandini had 50 assists (.333), while Haina (.481) had another match-high 15 kills. 

CSUN vs. San Jose State

The Matadors closed out the tournament with a 4-1 victory over the Spartans (25-17, 25-19, 23-25, 25-19).

“The third set was sloppy but it was a overall good match win,” Stork said. 

Haina had a team-high 12 kills (.200) plus nine digs, leading the way as the players shared the wealth adding up to 52 kills as a team. 

According to Stork, the team played steady and came up with many sideouts. 

The team’s toughest set came in the fourth. 

It was a close set but until the team executed four straight points opening up a 14-9 lead. From then on, the lead was never less than four points. 

“It was a good weekend overall,” Stork said. “We played with lots of confidence.”