CSUN Gears Up in Playoff Tuneup : College volleyball: Loyola Marymount provides a test but falls in four games as Matadors prepare for WIVA tournament.

A simple little tuneup against Loyola Marymount almost turned into a major overhaul Friday night when Cal State Northridge, in its final regular-season match before next week’s Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament, was almost given more of a road test than it bargained for.

The third-ranked Matadors still won, 16-14, 11-15, 15-11, 15-12, on their home court, but not without having to use most of their horsepower against the stubborn Lions (8-13), who were fighting to be included in the eight-team tournament field.

Northridge (21-6), having already clinched at least the tournament’s fifth seeding, started the match with an outside chance of winning the WIVA’s DeGroot Division title and thereby earning a date with top-ranked USC on Wednesday--the winner earning an automatic berth in the NCAA Final Four in Hawaii, May 3-4.

However, Northridge’s championship chances depended on UC Irvine upsetting UCLA on Friday, which it didn’t. UCLA won in three games, so Northridge will play Pepperdine (13-8) at 2:30 p.m. at Irvine’s Bren Center in first-round tournament action.

The semifinals will be played Thursday and the finals will be played Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The tournament champion earns the West Region nomination for the only at-large berth in the Final Four.

Northridge will enter postseason action seemingly in high gear. The Matadors have won six in a row, with Loyola Marymount providing the prescribed tough pre-tournament obstacle.

“Hopefully what tonight did is motivate our guys to say, ‘We need to do better on Wednesday,’ ” Northridge Coach John Price said. “If we cruise tonight, we might rest on our laurels. We need to play well tonight to win and that’s what we did.”

Neil Coffman, the WIVA’s second-ranked attacker, played a typically strong match for the Matadors. He had match highs of 30 kills and 13 digs and added seven blocks.

Ken Lynch and Coley Kyman added support for Northridge with 18 and 17 kills. Kyman added a match-high nine blocks.

Sio Saipaia led Loyola Marymount with 23 kills. Teammate Chuck Donlon had 19 kills and a team-high 12 digs.