Northridge Season Ends in Victory

In a fitting ending to his six-year tenure at Cal State Northridge, safety Eric Treibatch made a diving interception at the Northridge 25-yard line with 11 seconds left to preserve the Matadors’ 23-17 season-ending win over Cal State Sacramento.

Treibatch, the school’s all-time leading tackler who returned last month from a spinal operation that nearly ended his career, caught the ball inches above the ground, denying the 11th-ranked Hornets the Western Football Conference title Saturday night at North Campus Stadium.

Northridge (5-5, 2-2 in WFC play) finished in a three-way tie for second in the conference with Sacramento and Southern Utah. Portland State won the title with a 3-1 mark.

The Matadors played the role of spoiler with a revived offense, including 179 yards passing by senior Marty Fisher and 146 yards in 24 carries by senior Jamal Farmer. The defense intercepted three passes and kept the Hornets in check, except for a lull in the last 5 minutes 39 seconds when it surrendered two touchdowns.

“That was very scary,” said Treibatch, a two-time redshirt who finished his career ranked fourth on CSUN’s interception list with nine. “They hurt us all game on that 18-yard out. I figured they were taking chances so I bailed out (defending) on the run and just laid out and got it. It is hard to describe what it meant coming back and playing for this team.”

It was the Matadors’ last Division II game (by NCAA mandate the Matadors will move to the I-AA ranks next season) and an emotional night for a dozen Northridge seniors who ended their college careers.

“We’ve got a lot of guys leaving,” Fisher said. “This was it--the final go-round. We all just said it was time to make it work. We wanted to go out with smiles.”

Farmer, who transferred from Hawaii in the spring, ended his college career by running for more than 100 yards for the third time this season. He also turned his only reception, on a screen play, into a 51-yard gain.

“Tonight, it was all the offensive line,” Farmer said. “I had huge holes all night. This was a team effort, everybody doing their jobs. We haven’t had that every week. Tonight, it was easy.”

It was anything but easy at the outset when linebacker Leonard Nelson intercepted Fisher’s first pass and returned it 11 yards to set up the Hornets’ first score, a 32-yard field goal by Tyson Becker with 11:50 left in the first quarter.

The Matadors responded with a 15-play, 90-yard drive that gained momentum when the Hornets were assessed a 15-yard personal foul for hitting Fisher out of bounds. Runs of 11 and 17 yards by Farmer and a nine-yard catch by Saadite Green on third down kept the drive alive. Farmer capped it on third down with a five-yard touchdown run and Northridge led, 7-3, with 6:29 remaining in the first quarter.

It marked the Matadors’ first lead since Oct. 24 when they edged Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 14-13, with a last-second touchdown.

Disaster struck on the next promising drive, however, when fullback Jim Warren caught a screen pass and ran 13 yards but fumbled. The ball rolled forward as players from both teams scrambled to recover it. Val Laolagi finally recovered it on the one-yard line for Sacramento.

On the next play, cornerback Mike Brown, playing in place of Vincent Johnson, who has struggled the past two weeks, stepped in front of split end Clint Primm and intercepted an underthrown pass. Brown returned it 27 yards to the Sacramento five.

On fourth down from the one, Joe Jezulin kicked an 18-yard field goal for a 10-3 lead.