Northridge Outclassed by Trojans : College volleyball: Matadors put up a fight in conference opener, but can’t stay with USC in the long run.

Eighteen days after having its world literally turned upside down by the Jan. 17 earthquake, the Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team took a step to regaining some form of normalcy Friday night when it played USC in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match.

The No. 8-ranked Matadors lost to the second-ranked Trojans for the 26th time in 28 matches, but Coach John Price saw plenty of positives in the Trojans’ 15-5, 11-15, 15-11, 15-7 victory at USC.

“I feel pretty good about our team,” Price said. “SC’s a great team and I felt like we played with them. I feel like the scores are not indicative of how close the match was.”

The match, which was Northridge’s first since finishing ninth in the UC Santa Barbara tournament Jan. 15, also served as the debut of Oliver Heitmann, a 6-foot-7 middle blocker from Germany, who was cleared to play for the Matadors last week.

Heitmann had team-high totals of 20 kills and 13 digs for Northridge (0-1, 0-1 in conference play), despite the fact that he is still hesitant to run certain plays in the Northridge offense.

“It was not bad for my first match,” Heitmann said. “(Northridge setter Gary Reznick) and I have only been practicing with each other for a few days. We don’t know each other that well.”

Reznick, a senior from Taft High, liked what he saw in Heitmann.

“Getting a player like Oliver is really going to help this team,” Reznick said. “He is going to bring the caliber of play on this team up a lot.”

After hitting an anemic .069 in the first game, Northridge bounced back to win the second behind the hitting and blocking of Heitmann and Gene Urcan (12 kills).

Leading, 11-9, Northridge extended its advantage to 12-9 when Heitmann and Urcan teamed up on a block of Chris Underwood (28 kills).

USC (4-0, 3-0) narrowed its deficit to 12-11, but Northridge took a 13-11 lead when the Trojans’ Jason Muholland (26 kills) hit long and Heitmann gave the Matadors a 14-11 advantage with a service ace. Northridge closed the game out when USC was called for a net violation.

USC had too much firepower for the Matadors in the final two games, as Underwood and Muholland powered the Trojans to hitting percentages of .434 and .392 compared to Northridge’s .269 and .089.

“They’re a great offensive team,” Price said. “We couldn’t stop them and I didn’t anticipate stopping them. I was just hoping we could side out with them and catch a run here and there.”

Reznick was particularly impressed with Muholland, a 6-7, 235-pound middle blocker from Canada.

“It’s really hard to stop a player like that,” Reznick said. “He’s going to get his kills during the course of a match. It’s like playing against Michael Jordan. He’s going to get his points.”