Jan. 27, 2006
Northridge, Calif. - No. 5 CS Northridge beat Stanford tonight in MPSF play 3-0, with games scores of 30-23, 30-25, and 30-23. Stanford's record moves to 2-7 overall and 1-4 in the MPSF. CS Northridge improves to 5-3 overall and 1-2 in conference play.
Ben Reddy led the way for the Cardinal, knocking down a team-high 14 kills, hitting.225. William Clayton posted six kills hitting .231, but Stanford hit just.107 (34-22-112) as a team. Reddy also picked up a double-double bydigging 10 balls and setter Jeremy Jacobs had 23 assists, four digsand a pair of blocks.
Northridge was led by junior Dan Rhodes who knocked down a match-high 16kills. All five Matador hitters hit at a high percentage led by Cary Hanson andJames Lischer, who each hit .417 in the match. Rhodes hit .314 on hisway to 16 kills and added 10 digs for his second double-double of theseason. As a team, Northridge hit .336 (51-15-107) as sophomoresetter Travis Bluemling recorded 45 assists. Libero Sebastian Pedrazatallied a match-high 13 digs in the Matador win.
Northridge won eight of the first 12 points in game one and the leadeventually grew to six at 14-8 after a Reddy hitting error. TheMatadors then went on an 8-5 run to take their biggest lead of thegame at 22-13. The Cardinal then battled back to take eight of the next10 points to pull within three at 24-21 forcing a Matador timeout. Northridgeresponded with kills from Kneubuhl and Rhodes to push the lead back to26-21 and the Matadors closed to game out with a pair of Cardinal hitting errors.
Game two was a much tighter affair as the two teams traded the leaduntil 22-22 when the Matadors used a Reddy hitting error and a Waitekill to force a Stanford timeout at 24-22. Reddy answered cutting thelead to 24-23, but that was as close as the Cardinal would get.Rhodes added a pair of kills down the stretch along with a J.T.Shaver ace and Northridge took a 2-0 lead.
Game three was tied nine times, the last at 14-14, before theMatadors engineered an 8-3 run to take a 22-17 lead on a MattBellante kill forcing a Cardinal timeout. Ceran came back with a killto cut the Northridge lead to 22-18, but Stanford would get no closerthe rest of the way as the Matadors claimed to 3-0 win.
The Cardinal will stay on the road as they compete at No. 9 UC Santa Barbara Saturday night at 8:00 p.m.