Off Night but Waves Lean on Matadors
They impress, then they stress, and in the end, they’re depressed.
Cal State Northridge was struck again by the failure to finish, a dark shadow that appears in almost every Northridge men’s volleyball match, this time during a 15-11, 15-13, 15-10 loss to Pepperdine in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match Wednesday night at Northridge.
The Matadors aren’t abundantly talented but they don’t really lose as much as they implode among a bevy of mental mistakes--service errors, ill-timed hitting errors, etc.--that become the norm.
“We were close, again,” Northridge Coach Jeff Campbell said. “That’s the story of our life right now. Our whole season. We don’t finish.”
The Matadors (2-5, 0-5 in MPSF play) had a size-13 foot in the door in each of the first two games when No. 2-ranked Pepperdine (7-1, 6-1) might have been guilty of sleeping in after dusting off former No. 2 Brigham Young twice last week.
Northridge outside hitter Chad Strickland, bothered by a shoulder injury in last month’s three-game loss to Pepperdine, fired away and was nailed with a yellow card midway through the first game for excessive celebration.
The emotional high worked for a while, with the Matadors taking a 10-9 lead on a kill by Adam Black, who also picked up a yellow card in the first game for taunting.
But eight Northridge service errors and a more balanced attack by Pepperdine were the more telling subplots of the first game, which finished with Pepperdine grabbing six of the final seven points.
The Matadors, who played well in the beginning of recent matches against BYU and Hawaii, trailed in the second game, 12-11, but again failed to get to 15.
“The scores show how we couldn’t finish it and they could,” said Strickland, who had 23 kills. “They had an off night, the type of thing you pray for against the No. 2 team, and we couldn’t take advantage.”
George Roumain had 26 kills and Rick Tune had 11 blocks for the Waves, who outblocked Northridge, 20-11, but played at a lesser level than they had been recently.
“We were a little flat,” Pepperdine Coach Marv Dunphy said.
The Matadors made 22 service errors, Pepperdine six.
“Usually that’s a statistic that shows where we are mentally in a game,” said Campbell, who started freshman Ryan Denihan at middle blocker.
Denihan, from Royal High, was supposed to redshirt the season, but because of desperate times he got the start and picked up seven kills and four blocks.
