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Cal State Northridge Men's Volleyball Beats USC In Four Games
April 14, 2007 Dan Rhodes had 26 kills and Eric Vance added 13 kills and 9 digs to lead the No. 8-ranked Cal State Northridge men's volleyball team to a regular season-ending 30-27, 31-33, 30-18, 30-27 win over No. 12 USC in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match on Saturday (April 14) in USC's Lyon Center. The teams will meet again on Wednesday (April 18) at 7 p.m. at Cal State Northridge in the play-in match of the MPSF tournament. The Trojans, seeded eighth to CSUN's seventh, will be making their first MPSF playoff appearance since 2001. With the victory, the Matadors improved to 17-14 overall and 11-11 in the MPSF, while USC dropped to 12-15 and 9-13. James Lischer added 8 kills (hitting .429) and 7 blocks for CSUN, while Sean Pederson had 9 digs and 6 blocks with 34 assists and Mike Gaudino served 4 aces. For USC, Juan Figueroa had 21 kills, 7 digs and 6 blocks, C.J. Schellenberg had 17 kills and 11 digs, Andrew Vernon had 8 blocks and 7 kills and Luke Morris had 14 digs. USC hit just .170 in the match. CSUN overcame a 25-23 deficit in the first game by scoring 7 of the last 9 points (the Matadors had 5 blocks in that game). The second game seesawed until the very end when a Figueroa kill followed by a block by Figueroa and Vernon (one of USC's 9 blocks in the game) closed it out for the Trojans. CSUN took control early in the third game, opening up an 8-2 lead and cruising in while hitting .417 and serving 5 aces. The Matadors clawed back from a 13-7 deficit in the final game and used a 4-point scoring run to take a 24-21 lead that held up for the victory.
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