Northridge Men in Step for Final Volleyball Breakthrough

That last step is a real lulu.

In each of the past four years, the Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team has inched a little closer to a national title.

In 1990, the Matadors earned their first postseason tournament berth. They lost in the first round.

In 1991, they advanced to the semifinals before losing.

The following season, they won two matches and fell in the tournament final.

Then, last season, Northridge won the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament and advanced to the NCAA Final Four.

All that’s left now is to win it.

But first, there is the fairly daunting task of earning a return trip.

Northridge (17-9) needs three consecutive victories to win the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament title and the probable Final Four bid that comes with it.

The Matadors open tournament play today at 4 p.m. against Pepperdine (13-8) in Stanford’s Maples Pavilion.

In other first-round action, Brigham Young (19-5) plays Hawaii (14-13) at 11 a.m., USC (16-6) meets San Diego State (17-11) at 1:30 p.m., and top-ranked UCLA (25-1) faces second-ranked Stanford (18-8) at 7:30 p.m.

The winner of the UCLA-Stanford match is conference champion and earns the MPSF’s automatic berth in the Final Four.

The loser drops back into the tournament semifinals, which will be played Monday at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

The tournament championship match is Tuesday at 7 p.m., with the winner likely to receive the only at-large berth in the NCAA Final Four, May 6-7 in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Northridge defeated USC, Pepperdine and Cal State Long Beach in the MPSF tournament last season, then downed Penn State in the NCAA semifinals before being swept by UCLA in the title match.

“It will be tough to top last year, but we’ve improved every year,” Northridge Coach John Price said.

“I don’t know what we’ll do if we win it. Go to the Caribbean and retire, I think.”

Pepperdine leads the series with Northridge, 19-11, but the Matadors have won 10 of the last 12 meetings, including the only two matches this season.

Northridge swept the Waves at Pepperdine on March 23 and rallied to win April 13 at Northridge.