Eight Not Enough for Matadors

Heather Hofmans flashed back to last season, when she was part of Cal State Northridge’s 2-29 women’s volleyball team, and acknowledged what she experienced Thursday night was a heck of a lot nicer.

“It feels really good,” said Hofmans, a senior setter. “Now if we can just keep it up.”

That is one of the few questions left for the Matadors in the Big Sky Conference after they dismantled Idaho State, 15-12, 15-5, 16-14.

Northridge (8-8, 7-0 in the conference) has won eight in a row, dominating Big Sky opponents. The Matadors have faced everyone but Northern Arizona in the nine-team conference, but at least one player Thursday wasn’t willing to hand over the title just yet.

“We know that anybody can beat anybody in the conference and we’re just as good as anybody,” said hitter Betsy Flenniken, who had 14 kills for Idaho State (11-10, 4-3). “But [Northridge] is a good team. They played well tonight.”

Hofmans agreed that the conference is too competitive for the Matadors to afford a letdown.

“We know we’re in a strong conference,” she said. “There is no team that dominates. We’re just on a high. We’re on our way up. We’re not where we want to be, but we’re on our way.”

Hofmans helped the Matadors get where they wanted to go with 32 assists and 10 digs. She said the fact that Big Sky coaches picked Northridge to finish last in a preseason poll has motivated the team.

“That has given us some added incentive,” she said. “It made us work harder. We wanted to shock people, which is always good.”

Perhaps the least shocked person in the gym was Northridge Coach Lian Lu, who said he expected a tough match but wasn’t surprised that his team was able to exploit Idaho State’s weaknesses.

“We know Idaho State is very strong,” Lu said. “They beat Pepperdine and Northern Arizona. But now our team looks like we’re dominating in conference.”

Hitter Amy Gillis had 12 kills and four service aces for Northridge and hitter Nancy Ma and middle blocker Getty Dimitrova each had 10 kills and seven blocks.