CSUN Plays by the Letter

Like a breath of fresh air, a team outside the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. ambled into the Cal State Northridge gym Saturday night, and, like a hurricane, the Matadors blew back.

CSUN beat Ohio State, 15-11, 15-3, 15-13, in a match as lopsided as the score indicated, about as difficult as a Republican primary for George Bush.

“If they were in the WIVA, they’d be down here,” said CSUN’s Raphael Tulino, dropping his hand to waist level.

Of course, for the three years the Matadors have played in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn., CSUN has barely passed the conference’s midsection itself.

But this season, CSUN (12-13) is in contention for a playoff berth in the national tournament and is 6-3 at home.

With this new-found success comes a new outlook on non-WIVA games.

“You come into these games with a different attitude,” CSUN middle blocker Robert Samuelson said. “It’s a lot more relaxed. There’s not as much pressure.”

The Matadors may have needed this breather. CSUN has lost three of its past four WIVA matches and still has Stanford at home and trips to San Diego State and UCLA on its schedule.

“It was important for us to win, just to get used to winning,” CSUN Coach John Price said.

The Matadors have been doing that against teams outside the WIVA. CSUN, which is ranked No. 7 in the nation, has won seven of nine games against non-WIVA teams and is 3-0 against MIVA (Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn.) teams.

“If we weren’t in the WIVA, we could make the Final Four,” Price said.

Ohio State (14-9), which plays in the MIVA, would vote for them. The Buckeyes, who came in ranked 15th in the nation, led, 6-3, in the first game and, 5-2, in the third.

But CSUN rallied in each game behind the setting of Tom Ribarich and Tony Rusen.

“Both setters did a nice job of moving the sets around,” Price said. “They set up a lot of one-on-ones.”

And the Matadors took advantage. Jeff Campbell had a team-high 11 kills, Tulino had 9 kills and a .727 hitting percentage and Samuelson had 7 kills while hitting .875.

“We were passing really well so Tom could mix it up and isolate hitters with good sets,” Samuelson said.

CSUN won the first two games in 40 minutes but took nearly that long to win the final one. After the Matadors had taken a 7-5 lead, Ohio State scored three consecutive points to go ahead, 8-7.

Both teams traded points until the score was knotted, 13-13. A bad Buckeye spike put CSUN at match point and a stuff by Campbell gave CSUN the match.

“Everybody played well, everybody did a nice job,” Price said.