CSUN Volleyball Team Easily Defeats USIU

It’s on to the NCAA Division II regionals and over with the regular-season games, but Cal State Northridge senior Heather Hafner wanted to go out with momentum Tuesday night.

And the Lady Matadors, apparently taking nothing for granted, fought off United States International University, 15-6, 12-15, 15-10, 15-5, in their last volleyball match before the NCAA playoffs begin Dec. 13.

“It was my last match,” Hafner said of the regular season. “I wanted to go out with a win.”

USIU (13-18), a Division I school, seemed to bring out the Division I qualities in the Division II Lady Matadors.

If CSUN can play in the regionals with the same intensity it had against USIU, the Lady Matadors might fulfill their No. 1 NCAA ranking.

They lived up to it Tuesday night at Northridge.

Play opened with the Lady Matadors using solid teamwork to outplay USIU. USIU served four balls into the net and missed several attacks to hand an easy game to CSUN.

As the volleys became more intense in the second game, so did the Lady Matadors. Shelli Mosby assisted in two early points by pretending to set the ball to Hafner.

Instead, freshman outside hitter Franci Bowman killed the ball for the scores. Bowman had 12 of CSUN’s 67 kills in the match.

The score went back and forth but eventually crept up to 13-10 for the Lady Gulls after freshman Claudia Johnson placed three accurate kills on the CSUN floor.

“Claudia is our best recruit ever,” USIU Coach Fred Featherstone said. “She is the 16th-best attacker in Division I, and she deserves it.”

She proved why in the second game. Johnson made five of her 16 kills and set a single-season school record of 478 kills.

But it was the attacking of CSUN’s middle blocker Karen Lontka that stole the show for the next two games.

Lontka topped Johnson’s performance by making 17 kills in the match, each more powerful than the last.

CSUN had trailed, 4-3, in the third game when Lontka came in.

Coach Walt Ker used Lontka like a secret weapon--in small but lethal doses.

The 5-11 junior, shaking off the effects of a stomach ailment, didn’t play the entire match. But she played when it counted, attacking the ball from a standing jump to bat it powerfully down into the faces of the Lady Gulls.

Each time Lontka came in, it was reflected on the CSUN scoreboard.

Hafner also played with the obvious experience of her four years.

“I have a lot of respect for Heather,” Featherstone said. “I don’t care what division you put her in, she is one of the best volleyball players in the country.”