No. 1 Warriors In men's collegiate volleyball, the No. 1 ranking has been bounced back and forth this season with no team able to hold on to it for very long.
fall to Matadors
Northridge brings its second
Campbell brought Matadors to life
No. 1 team down in a row
By Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.comHawaii rose to No. 1 earlier this week, but perhaps being No. 1 wasn't in Hawaii's best interest.
Eighth-ranked Cal State Northridge knocked off its second No. 1 team in as many matches yesterday. Before a crowd of 3,223 at the Stan Sheriff Center, Northridge defeated Hawaii 24-30, 30-26, 30-24, 30-21, beating the Warriors for the first time since 1997. Northridge improves to 9-4 overall and 5-3 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
"We passed pretty well," Matadors coach Jeff Campbell said. "I've seen Hawaii play much better than that. We were expecting Hawaii to be a completely different team.
"I'd love to say it was all coaching tonight, but it wasn't. I think the guys are really starting to play better. When we beat UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, it might not sound like a big deal, it was a big win. That momentum swung right into Irvine and we pulled out a couple close games. That momentum rolled us right into Hawaii."
Momentum hasn't been on Hawaii's side at all this season.
"The question we have to ask is does being No. 1 have a bad effect on us," Hawaii coach Mike Wilton said. "We were No. 1 before and we didn't play very well during that time at all."
Inconsistency reared its ugly head again for Hawaii (8-3, 4-3). The Warriors dominated Game 1 but disappeared when the match got close. Hawaii made errors of every kind -- hitting, serving, ball-handling -- whenever it started to come close to catching up with Northridge.
And the Warriors could find no answer for bad setting. Kimo Tuyay and Daniel Rasay took turns delivering unhittable balls.
"It was reminiscent, though not quite as bad, as night two at UC Irvine," Wilton said. "Northridge made all the plays. They made all the hustle plays.
"We passed pretty well. It was good enough to win. We shot ourselves so many times in the foot tonight. Our second contact was horrible. It was atrocious. The location was terrible. They were trapping our hitters."
The Warriors were balanced hitting-wise, with four players in double-digit kills. Hawaii seniors Costas Theocharidis (20 kills), Eyal Zimet (13 kills) and Tony Ching (10 kills) led the attack, while middle Joshua Stanhiser chipped in 12 kills.
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaii's Tony Ching hit one past Cal State Northridge's Scott Arneson last night.
Ty Tramblie, Tuyay and Rasay's counterpart on the other side, did just the opposite. Tramblie ran a balanced attack, with three Matadors in double digits. Opposite Joe Nargi blasted 19 kills to lead the Matadors.
"(Tramblie) was good," Wilton said. "That was the big difference. Their second contact was very good."
Game 1 was a back and forth battle. In spite of Tramblie's best efforts at the net, it was just a huge mismatch with Theocharidis hitting one-on-one against Tramblie. The 5-foot-10 setter -- the Matadors' version of Rudy -- could only reach with all his might when Theocharidis went over him for back-to-back kills to start a crucial 5-0 run with the game knotted at 22. The Warriors ended the game on a kill by Eyal Zimet and a stuff by Theocharidis and Delano Thomas.
Game 2 mirrored Game 1, only it was Northridge that made the run with the score tied at 22. The Matadors had no blocks in Game 1, but racked up five in Game 2, including four during a decisive 7-3 run. Middle Stan Douglas and Tamer George stuffed Theocharidis to reach game point first.
Hawaii got another kill from Theocharidis before Thomas misfired his jump serve into the net to give Northridge the game.
No Warrior was immune to the Matador block in Game 3. Northridge averages only three blocks a game, but managed seven stuffs in Game 3. Hawaii had 12 hitting errors, including a string of five straight to end a dismal game in which the Matadors outhit the Warriors .286 to .077.
Game 4 wasn't much better, as Hawaii dug a huge hole and never came out of it.
The teams meet again today at 7 p.m.
Notes: UH athletic director Herman Frazier and associate athletic director Tom Sadler watched the match. ... In the latest NCAA statistics, Hawaii is third in team hitting percentage (.472) behind Loyola-Chicago (.377) and Pepperdine (.373). Middle blockers Delano Thomas (.462) and Joshua Stanhiser (.439) are ninth and 13th in the nation in hitting percentage. ... Theocharidis is third in kills per game with 5.08 and Thomas is fourth in blocking with 1.62 stuffs per game.
CSU Northridge def. Hawaii
24-30, 30-26, 30-24, 30-21 MATADORS (9-4, 5-3 MPSF)
g k e att pct. bs ba d Nielsen 4 14 6 35 .229 1 2 7 Nargl 4 19 8 40 .275 0 3 3 Douglas 4 7 0 12 .583 0 5 3 Tramblie 4 0 1 1 -1.000 1 1 7 George 4 13 2 24 .458 1 2 5 Arneson 4 8 3 13 .385 4 3 4 Hansen 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 English 4 0 0 1 .000 0 0 7 Pedraza 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Totals 4 61 20 126 .325 7 16 36 WARRIORS (8-3, 4-3 MPSF)
g k e att pct. bs ba d Tuyay 4 0 2 2 -1.000 0 1 3 Zimet 4 13 7 26 .231 0 1 5 Theocharidis 4 20 8 49 .245 0 5 3 Ching 4 10 6 20 .200 1 1 6 Thomas 3 5 4 11 .091 0 6 1 Stanhiser 4 12 3 21 .429 0 1 1 Motter 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 10 Jeschke 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Azenha 1 6 3 13 .231 0 2 1 Bender 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Nordberg 1 3 0 3 1.000 0 1 1 Rasay 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 4 Totals 4 69 33 145 .248 1 18 35 Key -- g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.
Aces -- Hawaii (2): Tuyay, Nordberg. CSUN (1): Nargl. Assists -- Hawaii (65): Tuyay 42, Rasay 16, Zimet 4, Theocharidis, Ching, Thomas. CSUN (60): Tramblie 56, Nargl 2, Nielsen, George.
T -- 2:03. Officials -- Ernest Ho, Dan Hironaka. Attendance -- 3,223.
UH Athletics
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Win or lose today, Cal State Northridge coach Jeff Campbell knows the Matador volleyball team is fortunate to exist. Campbell brought
Matadors to lifeBy Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.comHis current players don't realize his gift to the program and it's not something he talks about unless asked. They may take for granted that they'll stay in a nice hotel on this trip (an upgrade paid for Northridge's volleyball alumni) and have a little extra money for meals.
The success the eighth-ranked Matadors experienced last week in victories against then-No. 1 UC Irvine and UCLA at Pauley Pavilion -- a place where Northridge had never won before -- was something to marvel at. A bonus to be appreciated by those who knew that the men's volleyball program was once without a pulse.
"You really have to lose and to be on the verge of losing the program to really feel the joys of beating UCLA at Pauley and beating No. 1 Irvine," Campbell said. "To know where we've been is awesome. It's a great feeling to be there, just knowing where we've been."
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Hawaii's Joshua Stanhiser tried to block Cal State Northridge's Tamer George last night.
Campbell resuscitated the men's volleyball program after it flat-lined in the summer of 1997. The program was dropped to meet gender equity compliance and to balance the athletic department's budget. Men's volleyball was reinstated three weeks before school started and it had neither a coach nor players. Campbell, a former All-American middle with the Matadors, became the interim head coach of the team after seven years as an assistant coach.
"In '97, that year was hell," Campbell said. "Aug. 7, I'll never forget it. They reinstated the program and we started school Aug. 28. I was getting married. I just bought a small house. We basically lost our jobs. It was tough times. My thing was that if I didn't stay and fight, the program would be gone. We're very lucky to have a program. There's players here that stayed when it was in jeopardy. But I felt that if I didn't fight, if I had left, it would be done. The end of men's volleyball.
"The money has never been that great in coaching, but there are rewards in coaching. These guys have no idea what I did."
Though its nonexistence was brief, many may not realize that Northridge had to start from scratch to rebuild. Campbell had no players. He had already helped most of his former players look for other places to play. So Campbell scoured the junior colleges and courted players who were already part of Northridge's student population.
What he got wasn't the best, but amazingly the Matadors finished 10-14 and made the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation playoffs in 1998 with a roster of 10 players. The Matadors were only supposed to receive funding for a year but learned in January of 1998 that the program wouldn't be discontinued again.
The effects of being dropped were felt the next season, as Northridge limped to a 3-21 record. Campbell estimates the program was set back three or four years even though it was only gone a few months. The struggle would continue for three more years.
"In 1999, we played a bunch of freshmen and we got beat bad. Oh man, that year was tough," Campbell said. "We've slowly been creeping back ever since. We're slowly developing a program. Now we've got some players who have been in our program three or four years and they were players I wanted.
"So now the difference between 1999 and 2003 is that we signed seven guys in the early signing period. These are guys who we want and we've got core guys who we're building on. So we're continuously building on the future."
The future can only get better. This year, the program increased its scholarship allotment to 4.5, the maximum number of scholarships allocated to men's volleyball. For four years, Campbell only had three scholarships to give.
"To the layman, 1.5 scholarships isn't that big, but I could sign six guys with 1.5 scholarships," Campbell said. "This is the first year we've been at 4.5 scholarships. We're making some strides. You think of all the little things that we've gotten now that we didn't have four or five years ago. It's nice to finally see some results. You don't build a program over night."
California State: Northridge Matadors
