Northridge Takes Care of Business and San Diego State

It was far from exciting. There were no long rallies or spectacular plays, but the Cal State Northridge volleyball team didn’t care.

The important thing is that the Matadors walked away with a 15-9, 15-7, 15-12 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation victory over San Diego State on Saturday night at Matador Gym.

At times, fourth-ranked Northridge (12-7, 8-5 in MPSF play) looked lethargic and didn’t seem to be playing up to its potential.

After all, unranked San Diego State (7-13, 2-10) is one of the weakest teams in the 14-member MPSF and getting pumped up for such an opponent can be difficult.

“It’s hard for all teams to get fired up to play them, but the good ones do and they win,” Northridge Coach John Price said. “I think we did good. We weren’t exceptionally sharp, but we were sharp enough.”

Northridge led throughout the first game and the Aztecs threatened only once, when they came within 10-9. The Matadors broke away with a 5-0 run to win the game.

San Diego State jumped to a 5-1 lead in the second game, but the Matadors tied it, 5-5, and didn’t trail again.

“We have been so up and down in the past and it’s great to play so steady,” Northridge outside hitter Chad Strickland said. “We just want to be consistent all the time like we were tonight.”

The Aztecs took a small lead at the start of the final game and after Northridge tied it, 4-4, the Aztecs went on to take a 10-7 lead.

But the Matadors responded with 7-0 run that gave them game point.

After fighting off two Northridge match points, San Diego State threatened by scoring two points of its own.

But after a sideout, the Matadors’ Dirk Schlueter nailed a ball right down the middle to finish off the Aztecs.

Jason Hughes led Northridge with 18 kills and nine digs. Kevin Bergschneider had 14 kills, and Strickland and Schlueter had 12 kills each.

Schlueter, a 6-foot-9 senior middle blocker from Germany, also had four blocks.

Lars Winter led the Aztecs with 19 kills.

Northridge will hit the road for its next five matches--two against BYU and one each against UC Irvine, UCLA and Loyola Marymount--before its last home match of the regular season against Pepperdine on April 13.

The Matadors stand third in the seven-team MPSF Mountain Division and are very much in the playoff picture.