HONOLULU — For the second time in as many matches, the University of Hawai’i men’s volleyball team dropped a four-set decision to No. 8 Cal State Northridge. The Matadors won 25-22, 24-26, 25-19, 25-15 Sunday at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The Warriors (5-12, 4-10 MPSF) lost both ends of a two-match home series to the Matadors for the first time since 1991. On Friday, CSUN won in Honolulu for the first time in 10 years.
Freshman Sinisa Zarkovic led the Warriors with 15 kills while sophomore Brook Sedore added 13 kills. In his return to the line-up after missing his first career match on Friday, JP Marks tallied seven kills, eight digs, and three aces.
After hitting .309 through the first two sets, UH hit .147 in Set 3 and -.062 in Set 4.
John Baker had a match-high 15 kills for the Matadors (9-6, 7-6).
CSUN took a 6-1 lead to start Set 1 but the Hawai’i erased that deficit quickly. With Marks serving bullets at the service line, which included two aces, the Warriors reeled off six straight points to take a 10-8 lead.
The Warriors led 19-15 but from there the wheels fell off. CSUN out-scored UH 10-3 to close out the set, including four straight to get to set point when Kyle Stevenson ended it at 25-22.
Set 2 was a complete opposite of the opening set. The Matadors reeled off four straight to take a commanding 17-12 lead before the Warriors slowly inched back with back-to-back blocks by Taylor Averill to close to within 21-20.
Moments later, a lucky bounce off the net gave CSUN set point. But UH answered when Marks hammered a shot down the line followed by a Matador hitting error. On the next play, Marks tooled off the block and UH erased a six-point deficit for the victory.
CSUN led 8-3 to open Set 3 fueled by three Warrior hitting errors. UH closed to within one three times but the Matadors opened their lead to 22-16. The Warriors committed nine hitting errors while dropped the set 25-19.
The Matadors scored five straight to open up an 11-6 lead in Set 4. Later in the set, CSUN strung together another five-point run, which included three UH hitting errors, for its largest lead at 20-11.
The Warriors will next host USC in a two-match MPSF series, March 8 & 10 at the Stan Sheriff Center.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
