Northridge and Pepperdine Trying to Avoid Early Road Kill

The road to the four-team NCAA championships--scheduled for May 2-4 at UCLA--will be a tough one for the Cal State Northridge and Pepperdine men’s volleyball teams.

Both have first-round playoff matches on the road tonight against higher-ranked opponents that defeated them during the regular season.

The Matadors, ranked seventh in the nation, will face No. 2 Long Beach State tonight at 7:30 at the Pyramid in Long Beach.

The No. 12 Waves will meet top-ranked Hawaii in Honolulu’s Special Events Center at 10 p.m. PDT. The 10,225-seat arena, which is sold out tonight, hosts notoriously rowdy crowds for most Hawaii matches.

“Everybody would like to play in front as many people as possible, so I don’t think that’s going to hurt us,” Pepperdine Coach Marv Dunphy said. “We need to prepare for a veteran team that doesn’t make too many errors. Sometimes they let you beat yourself.”

The Waves (15-10, 10-9 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play), who placed fourth in the league’s Mountain Division, beat Northridge, 3-1, in Pepperdine’s regular-season finale last week.

Junior outside hitter Kevin Barnett, a transfer from Pierce College who was selected to the All-MPSF second team, leads Pepperdine with 550 kills, 147 digs and 48 aces.

Freshman outside hitter George Roumain, last week’s MPSF player of the week, is second with 405 kills and senior middle blocker John Bowling is No. 1 in blocks with 155.

Hawaii (25-1, 19-0), champion of the MPSF Pacific Division, has lost only to third-ranked UCLA. The Rainbows are led by sophomore outside hitter Yuval Katz (538 kills, 44 aces), an All-American last season who was selected to the All-MPSF first team earlier this week.

“I think we’re controlling the ball better now and we have pretty good hitting,” Dunphy said. “Also, in the past we used to give up runs of points, but we’re not anymore.”

The Matadors (15-11, 10-9) should have a difficult time against Long Beach, a team that has defeated them twice this season.

The 49ers (21-5, 15-4), No. 2 in the Pacific Division, snapped a 10-match winning streak in their regular season final last week against USC.

Senior outside hitter Martin Wagner leads Long Beach with 462 kills, and seniors Neil Mendel (129 blocks) and Tom Hoff (128) are the team’s best blockers. Hoff leads the team in digs (140) and is second with 453 kills.

“They’re very experienced in the playoffs and they have a lot of poise,” Northridge Coach John Price said. “That’s their biggest advantage.”

Northridge, third behind UCLA and UC Santa Barbara in the Mountain Division, is led by junior outside hitter Collin Smith (424 kills). Sophomore outside hitter Chad Strickland has 409 kills and 239 digs and senior middle blocker Dirk Schlueter has 112 blocks.

Junior setter Dan Nash, a transfer from Pierce College, ranks fifth in the NCAA with a per-game average of 16.4.

“We just have to play hard and if we do I think it’s an even match,” Price said.

“They don’t have one of those teams where you have to play great and they have to play average to beat them.”

The Matadors ended the regular season with a 3-1 loss to Santa Barbara on Tuesday night.

*

Volleyball Notes

In today’s other MPSF first-round playoff matches, ninth-ranked Pacific (17-9, 12-7) visits third-ranked UCLA (21-5, 15-4), and No. 5 Stanford (15-7, 12-7) is at No. 4 Santa Barbara (16-7, 14-5). The highest-seeded team remaining will play host next week’s MPSF finals.

2-line CAPTION FOR volleyball 1