CSUN Women Defeat Dominguez Hills in Four

The Matadors faced the Toros in Friday night, and they took everything but the ears and the tails.

Only in the first game was the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. women’s volleyball match in doubt, as the Cal State Northridge Lady Matadors rallied for an 11-15, 15-7, 15-6, 15-6 victory over Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The Toros fell to 5-12 overall and 0-4 in the conference, as CSUN improved its record to 8-9 overall and 5-0 in the conference with the win at Dominguez Hills.

Dominguez Hills came out strong in the first game, capitalizing on several Lady Matador errors. Samaria Niu led the Toros with two clever kills in that game to give Dominguez Hills an early lead.

“We were laughing out there on the court at our dumb plays,” said CSUN All-America Shelli Mosby. “That isn’t a very good sign of intensity.”

The Matador intensity level picked up in the second game. CSUN had an eight-point run, led by the strong play of Anna Garcia and All-America Heather Hafner, who had 17 kills in the match.

“We were playing out of our minds for the first game,” said Steve Barr, sports information director for Dominguez Hills. “Then reality set in.”

The reality is that Dominguez Hills hasn’t beaten CSUN in five seasons. The Toros have no All-America players and their tallest player is only 5-10.

“Our ball control was poor in the first game,” said CSUN Coach Walt Ker. “So we didn’t really get into the flow of things.”

Nothing flowed for anyone except CSUN’s Karen Lontka in the third game. Ker said he had kept Lontka out of the first two games because the middle blocker has a foot injury. She showed no sign of pain, though, as she scored repeatedly, accumulating three of her 11 kills and adding several blocks.

The Toros fought back in the fourth game. Sideouts were exchanged 38 times behind the strength of Toro Maureen Bond’s digging.

“They’re really tired of losing,” Toro Coach Connie LaBuhn said. “And we actually beat them in the first game.”

Dawn Eto made eight kills in the final game to clinch the victory.