Northridge Falls Far Short in Big Test Against UCLA

The first thing to understand about the National Invitational Volleyball Tournament at UCLA is that everything is big .

Eleven of the top 20 Division I teams are playing in the tournament, which is considered second only to the NCAA finals in quality. Three games are played simultaneously on separate courts at Pauley Pavilion. Even the spectators, such as former Los Angeles Lakers center Wilt Chamberlain, give the tournament an aura of size.

The Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team faced an especially tall order Thursday night when it played defending national champion UCLA in the first game of pool play.

UCLA has seven players taller than six feet. That size, combined with the hitting of the Bruins’ Lori Zeno, was too much for the Lady Matadors as they fell to the top-ranked Bruins, 15-5, 15-9.

CSUN Coach Walt Ker shrugged off the loss.

“We’ve been playing great lately, but we didn’t execute very well tonight,” said Ker, whose team dropped to 5-6. “Defensively, we did a good job after getting off to a slow start. Offensively, we were very poor.”

The big factor in the Lady Matadors’ defeat was the play of Zeno, who was playing because of injuries to Liz Masakayan, the 1984 College Volleyball Player of the Year, and All-American’s Michelle Boyette and Katie McGarrey.

Zeno had 14 kills and four digs for the Bruins, who improved their record to 11-2.

“We weren’t picking up their offensive patterns,” said CSUN’s Heather Hafner, a two-time All American. “When Zeno went outside, she was going against Shelli (Mosby), our shortest blocker.”

In the first game, Lisa Ettesvold and Zeno served the Bruins to a quick 7-1 lead.

The Lady Matadors had trouble hitting over the taller Bruin blockers, who either batted away the attempts or forced them to be hit out of bounds.

Meanwhile, Zeno was spiking the ball with force and accuracy for UCLA. The Bruins built up a 13-5 lead in the first game and Zeno served the final two points to give them the victory.

In the second game, UCLA jumped out to a 4-0 lead behind the serving of Ann Boyer.

The Lady Matadors fought back to trail 4-3, with Franci Bowman leading the charge from the service line. Hafner seemed to be everywhere on the floor, collecting some of her game-high nine digs.

UCLA upped its lead to 9-3 on the strength of Jenny Crocker’s serves and the hitting of Zeno and Leslie Brewer.

The Lady Matadors pulled to within one, at 9-8, but the Bruins’ depth began to overpower CSUN.

With the score 10-9, Kim Poppa came off the Bruin bench to serve four straight points. One possession later, Boyer added two more. The match was over.

“Northridge has a good team, but they just don’t have as many quality players as we do,” UCLA Coach Andy Banachowski said. “They play a tough pre-season schedule, so you know they’ll be right in there as the season progresses.”

The Lady Matadors have now lost five games to Division I opponents in a preseason that Ker hopes will toughen up his team.

“We’ve got no reason to be embarrassed,” Ker said. “We want to get playing experience against good teams. A tournament like this is just the place to do it.”

CSUN, the only Division II team in the tournament, continues pool play today at 11:30 a.m. against the University of Calgary, one of Canada’s top collegiate teams. At 2:30 p.m., CSUN will play Fresno State.

The quarterfinals of the tournament begin tonight at 8, and the semifinals begin Saturday at 1 p.m. The championship match will be held at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Following the game, Hafner sat in the stands, iced her right shoulder and watched Calgary defeat Fresno State.

“We played well tonight, but obviously, UCLA is a strong team,” she said. “We have a young team, but we weren’t as intimidated as I thought we would be.

“I think we’ll do well in our next two games. Making it to the quarterfinals in a tournament like this would be great for our team.”

In other pool-play matches Thursday, third-ranked University of the Pacific, which has won the tournament three years in a row, defeated Cal State Fullerton, 15-3, 15-7.

Hawaii, ranked sixth in the nation, beat 20th-ranked Pepperdine, 15-13, 9-15, 15-12.

UC Santa Barbara, ranked 19th, defeated ninth-ranked USC, 15-11, 15-5.