No. 15 USC Sweeps Past Northridge to End Matadors’ Winning Streak

An inability to relax in crunch time against 15-ranked USC did in the Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team in a nonconference match Wednesday night at Matador Gymnasium.

Northridge, which opened the season by winning the UC Irvine tournament last weekend, proved it could play with USC during the middle portion of each game. But when the Matadors sputtered down the stretch of the second and third games, the Trojans wrapped up a 15-12, 15-10, 15-8 victory.

It was USC Coach Lisa Love’s 100th victory--against 56 losses--at the school and ended Northridge’s three-match season-opening winning streak.

It also left Matador outside hitter Missy Clements disappointed.

“I wish we could have relaxed a little more on the court,” she said. “We just seemed like we were too nervous at times and we would just brain-lock.”

After trailing, 7-1, in the first game and, 5-1, in the second, the Matadors took an 8-6 lead in game three, but did not score again.

USC (3-1) trimmed the deficit to 8-7 when Lauri Yust blocked a kill attempt by Heather Anderson. After a pair of sideouts, USC ran off eight consecutive points with Monika Cavaliere serving.

Vesna Dragicevic, a 6-foot-1 outside hitter from what was formerly Yugoslavia, had four of her 14 kills during the run. Her first one tied the score, 8-8, and her fourth gave the Trojans a 13-8 lead.

USC took a 14-8 lead when Northridge was whistled for hitting the ball four times. The Trojans’ final point came when a Clements’ pass on a Cavaliere serve went into the net.

USC scored the final point of each game on Northridge mistakes.

“Because this was (our) first home game, the girls (came) out too intense,” first-year Northridge Coach Lian Kang Lu said. “We put too much pressure on ourselves. In the last tournament, we relaxed more. We fight when we get down. Tonight, we get too nervous when the pressure is on.”

Clements had a match-high 20 kills--.372 hitting percentage--along with 11 digs, but the Matadors did not block well.

Northridge only had eight total blocks and committed six blocking errors, compared to USC’s 20 total blocks and three errors.

Aimee Stone had 11 kills and Anderson and Ana Kristich each had 10 kills for the Matadors, who play No. 17-ranked Arizona in the San Diego State tournament Friday.

Meika Wagner had a team-high 16 kills and a .345 hitting percentage for USC, despite playing with the third and fourth fingers of her right hand heavily taped.

“We need to play this team again,” Lu said. “If we can relax like last week, we can go five games with them.”

After trailing, 5-1, in game two, Northridge battled back to tie the score, 10-10. But USC scored the last five points of the game to win, 15-10.

The Trojans took a 11-10 lead on a kill by Dragicevic, and when Kathleen Shannon pushed a ball far left, USC led, 12-10.