CSUN Breezes Past Dominguez

All-American Shelli Mosby shrugged her shoulders and made a casual prediction before the Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball match Tuesday night.

“We don’t have a tough match left before the regionals,” the senior CSUN co-captain said.

After the Lady Matadors defeated Cal State Dominguez Hills 15-5, 16-14, 15-4 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. match, Mosby nodded and with a grin said: “Three straight. We just wanted to get out of here.”

Many of the 100 spectators felt the same way.

Someone had forgotten to turn the heater on in the CSUN gymnasium and not even the Lady Matadors could supply enough heat for the crowd.

“It was freezing in here,” All-American Heather Hafner said. “We just wanted to finish up the match and leave. We really never got warmed up.”

It was either the cold air or the lukewarm challenge presented by the Toros (1-10), but something caused the Lady Matadors (11-0) to drag until the last game.

CSUN Coach Walt Ker had watched his team struggle to a 5-4 lead, and junior Mary Kay Ports was preparing to serve.

Ker called a time out and reminded the team that they could use a little intensity to finish the match.

“We weren’t as intense as we should have been,” CSUN middle blocker Karen Lontka said. “He warned us that we’d been caught from behind before.”

They didn’t let it happen this time.

Ports served 10 straight, four of them zeroing in on targeted Toro holes for aces. With each point the Lady Matadors regained the forgotten intensity. Fans almost forgot about the cold in the heat of the last five minutes of the match.

The first game took almost half as long as the 50-minute match, however.

Despite bursts of brilliance from CSUN’s Lontka and outside hitter Anna Garcia, who each made four kills in that game, fans shivered back into their seats as possession was exchanged monotonously 39 times.

Points rather than possessions were exchanged evenly in the second game.