April 1, 2008

Final Stats

IRVINE, Calif. - Four Cal State Northridge hitters posted double figure kill totals led by Eric Vance and Isaac Kneubuhl's 17 but the second-ranked Matadors had their school-record 14-match win streak snapped by ninth-ranked UC Irvine, 28-30, 30-24, 42-40, 30-18 on Tuesday at the Bren Center.

With the win, the Anteaters even their season record at 13-13 and improve their MPSF slate to 9-10. The loss, Northridge's first in nearly two months, drops the Matadors to 20-5 overall and 15-4 in conference play. The loss means Northridge is just one-half game ahead of both Long Beach State and BYU with three matches to play.

Vance and Knuebuhl played their usual role leading the Northridge offense but neither hit particularly well as Kneubuhl hit just .173 and Vance was held to a .070 hitting clip. Kevin McKniff (15 kills, .393) and Mike Gaudino (11 kills, .192) picked up some of the offensive slack but the Matadors suffered with the absence of middle blocker Cody Loe. Northridge was dominated at the net by UCI as the Anteaters ranked up 21.0 team blocks to just 7.5 for the Matadors.

Jon Steller led the Anteaters attack by putting down a match-high 27 kills in addition to posting a career-high seven block assists. Freshman Jordan DuFault added 16 kills, 12 digs and seven block assists and Aaron Harrell recorded a match-high nine total blocks in the win.

UCI led 10-8 early in game one, but Northridge battled back to take their first lead at 12-11. The Matadors would continue to lead opening up a 24-19 advantage on a kill by Gaudino. The Anteaters rallied to close to within 28-27 on a Steller kill, but the teams would trade points until Knewubuhl ended the game with a kill 30-28. The two teams combined for 19 service errors in the first game.

UCI used a 7-1 run to take control of game two, leading 27-20. The Anteaters would go on to take the game 30-24 on a Steller kill.

Northridge had a 15-11 advantage in game three and continued to lead at 23-21. UCI would score three unanswered to take the 24-23 lead. UCI would go ahead 28-26 on a pair of Steller kills and led 29-27 before the Matadors used kills by McKniff and Vance to knot the score at 29-29. The marathon would begin with each team trading points until 40-40 when Harrell put away a kill in the middle that was followed by a Matador attack that sailed wide to give UCI the game, 42-40. The 42-40 frame was the third longest in MPSF history with the only two longer games (45-43 and 43-41) both involving Northridge. The Matadors and Pepperdine played the longest game in MPSF history (45-43) in 2007 and Northridge and Hawai'i played a 43-41 game two on Mar. 25.

Game four turned out to be all UCI as the Anteaters jumped out to a 5-1 lead and never looked back taking the set 30-18 and the match, 3-1. UCI hit .480 in the game compared to Northridge's .083.

Cal State Northridge wraps up the regular season road schedule this Friday as the Matadors travel to No. 7 UCLA at 7 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion.

- GO MATADORS -