Revenge Comes Early for Northridge Against Sonoma State, 106-80

Only 5 games into the season and already Cal State Northridge has tasted sweet revenge.

It would be best, CSUN players agreed after a 106-80 drubbing of Sonoma State on Thursday night at Northridge, if they are not forced into a repeat performance soon.

There’s a significant problem connected with revenge victories: You have to lose first.

Against Sonoma, the loss--a surprising one--came last week on the Cossacks’ home floor, 96-90, in overtime.

Coach Pete Cassidy denied using revenge as a motive to inspire the Matadors to a peak performance.

He said his references to Sonoma during practice this week were purely instructional.

It didn’t matter. At each mention of the name--Sonoma--the players bristled.

“We wanted to beat them bad,” said Todd Bowser, who scored 17 points and grabbed 15 rebounds. “We gave one away up there. Coach didn’t have to say anything at all. We knew.”

Despite the final score, it was not all smooth sailing for the Matadors.

Sonoma (3-5) jumped out to a 16-6 lead after 5 minutes.

Northridge responded by scoring 11 consecutive points, but the Matadors didn’t start to pull away for good until just before the half. At intermission, CSUN’s lead was 50-43, and when Sonoma went cold in the second half the margin quickly built.

The Cossacks shot 53% in the first half, but only 35% in the second.

Northridge has scored in triple digits in all 4 of its victories. The Matadors were led in scoring with 18 points each by Derrick Gathers and Kris Brodowski, a pair of junior college transfers who started the game cold.

Gathers’ jump shot--as sweet as one that can be found on the CSUN team--was temporarily AWOL.

Brodowski was on the bench, having stayed there the entire game in CSUN’s rout of Bethany Bible on Tuesday. The 6-6 forward was nursing a pulled left groin, but the injury was hardly noticeable. He made 7 of 11 shots and pulled in 7 rebounds before fouling out late in the game.

Gathers missed his first 6 shots, bringing an early hook from Cassidy. He got his touch back upon re-entry, however, and made 5 shots in a row the last 6 minutes of the half.

“I knew it was a matter of time, but I felt kind of funny at first,” Gathers said. “We wanted revenge so bad and that was standing out in my head. I guess I was trying to do too much.”

Darren Matsubara added 16 points and 10 assists for Northridge, which also got 15 points from Jemarl Baker.

Chris Perine had 18 points for Sonoma State. Thomas Johnson added 14 and Brian Desilva had 11.