After 11 consecutive games away from home, the Matadors will finally make their home debut on Saturday.
“We are all excited to have a game at home and have our family and friends there to cheer us on,” freshman attacker Melissa Doll said.
The Cal State Northridge water polo team will host the Occidental Tigers and Cal State Bakersfield. It will be the Matadors’ only two home games until March 16.
Even though the team likes to play on the road in bigger pools, the players hope being at home will bring the fans out.
“A lot of people from the different sports teams (CSUN athletics) will go and support us,” senior Sydney Sonoda said. “Even though it is a small pool and not the size we like, we play in it every day and hopefully we get a good turn out.”
Even with a smaller pool, the players believe the Matador pool size will benefit them.
“We have an advantage with our small pool, we are used to it,” said Doll, who has 11 goals this season. “Other teams can get frustrated with that and they have to adjust to it.”
In Saturday’s double-header, Northridge will face Cal State Bakersfield for the second time this season.
In their first matchup, the Matadors defeated the Roadrunners in a close game, 13-11. Junior attacker Whitney Delgado had a career-high seven goals to lift Northridge past Bakersfield. Last season, CSUN beat the Roadrunners twice, 14-6 and 6-3.
During this week of practice, the Matadors will try to make the necessary changes in order to come out with a victory.
“We will watch film and make the adjustments we need to make to win,” Doll said. “We can’t be too confident because they (Roadrunners) can come in wanting revenge from the last game.”
The Matadors will also need to fix the defensive breakdowns they made during the first game, which allowed the Roadrunners to score seven goals in the second half.
Bakersfield freshman Taylor Hanson dominated on offense and scored five goals against the Matadors the last time around.
“Now that we know they have good attackers, we can stay on her (Hanson) and let someone else take the shot,” Doll said.
Northridge’s last opponent of the day will be Division III Occidental, who has only one game under its belt with a win over Azusa Pacific 14-10.
“We are going to go in with an open mindset and play our style of water polo,” said Sonoda, who has 21 goals this season. “It will be good transition game from a fast pace (Bakersfield) game to the freshmen playing more in the Occidental game to gain more experience.”
