USC Keeps Northridge Winless in Conference

John Price, Cal State Northridge’s men’s volleyball coach, said that it was a case of “could have, should have and would have,” Friday night against USC.

Northridge could have won, but it came up a little short every game as USC, the defending national champion, swept to a 15-11, 15-13, 18-16 victory in a Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. match at Northridge.

USC, ranked fifth in the nation, improved to 13-5 overall and 5-3 in conference play. Northridge, ranked 12th, dropped to 3-7 overall and 0-7 in the WIVA.

Friday night’s loss follows last week’s five-game defeats to UC Santa Barbara and Stanford.

“We were good enough to win,” Price said. “We’ve lost three close games to three of the top-ranked teams in the country. I guess we are the world’s best 0-7 team.”

The Matadors should have won the first game against USC after bolting to a 7-0 lead. The Trojans, however, came back with nine consecutive points behind the front-line play of Tom Duke, Bryan Ivie and Leon Devaney and captured the game.

Northridge would have won the second and third games had the Matadors found a way to finish off the Trojans after tying them late in each game.

Northridge broke a 12-12 tie in the second game on a kill by Ron Graening. But after a sideout, USC ran off three consecutive points on a Northridge hitting error, a Northridge net violation and a kill by Trojan outside hitter Chris Martz.

With the score tied, 16-16, in the third game, USC went ahead when a ball deflected off the hands of Northridge’s Andrew Greskovics. With Martz serving, Devaney put away match point with a kill.

Outside hitter Bob Samuelson paced Northridge with 23 kills. Neil Coffman added 15 kills for the Matadors and setter Tom Ribarich had 25 assists.

Duke and Martz each registered 18 kills for USC and setter Dan Greenbaum had 68 assists.

Northridge continues its quest for its first WIVA victory tonight when it plays host to UC Irvine.

The Matadors will visit UCLA next week.