Poor Effort Earns Northridge Return Trip to Hawaii : Men’s volleyball: Price says Matadors did not try in loss to Santa Barbara.

In 10 years of coaching, John Price says he has not encountered anything close to what he saw in Tuesday night’s match between his Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team and UC Santa Barbara.

The Matadors lost the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match, 15-3, 15-9, 15-8, but it’s not the loss that bothered Price. He said his players simply acted like they didn’t care and their performance reflected it.

“I’ve never had a team lose because they didn’t try hard enough,” Price said. “Even in the years when we weren’t that good, this never happened. It was embarrassing.”

After the match Price apologized to Santa Barbara Coach Ken Preston for his team’s lack of effort.

The match didn’t mean much to the Gauchos (16-8, 14-5) who had already secured a playoff spot by finishing second in the league’s Mountain Division.

Northridge, on the other hand, had something at stake, though one could never tell by the team’s play. The Matadors (16-11, 11-8) would have gone to Stanford for Saturday’s first-round playoff match had they beaten Santa Barbara. Instead Northridge will go to Hawaii, where it lost two conference matches last weekend.

Of course, a couple days in Hawaii and the prospect of avoiding top-ranked UCLA might have played a part in the Matadors’ lack of effort.

“If we had beaten Stanford we would have played UCLA next,” said senior middle blocker Oliver Heitmann. “Of course we wanted to win, but I think that was in the back of our minds tonight and it hurt us.”

UCLA has defeated the Matadors in consecutive games twice this season and Heitmann said a rematch so early in the playoffs was undesirable.

The thought of it certainly hampered Heitmann, the Matadors’ best hitter and blocker, against Santa Barbara. He had only eight kills and two blocks.

With Northridge’s other top hitter, senior middle blocker Jon Baer, out with flu, sophomore hitter Jason Hughes led the team with 17 kills. Junior Chris Gil had 13 kills. Neither player is a regular starter. In fact, Price called on his reserves after a quick first game in which Santa Barbara took a 10-2 lead.

“This is the first time this season that the subs didn’t work,” Price said. “The whole team just wasn’t ready. It’s incredibly frustrating. I just don’t get it.”