UCLA Puts Down an Ace to Deck Northridge

The doubters had become believers. The casual observers had turned fanatical.

The impossible--or, at very least, the improbable--was about to happen.

Cal State Northridge on Wednesday night was but a few measly points from defeating UCLA in men’s volleyball for the first time since the teams began playing in 1984.

When freshman Ken Lynch smashed home a kill to put CSUN ahead, 11-8, in the fifth and final game, there were but four more nails to drive into the Bruin coffin.

Under recently adopted NCAA rules, should a match go five games, the last one is played under a “quick-score” format. Every time the ball hits the floor, it’s a point, which meant that all CSUN had to do was trade points with UCLA to win.

Which is why what transpired next left the Matadors wondering if they wouldn’t rather have been the victim of a three-game sweep.

UCLA, the defending national champion, scored seven unanswered points to pull out a 13-15, 15-12, 15-6, 7-15, 15-11 victory over CSUN in a Western Intercollegiate Athletic Assn. match at CSUN.

John Price, Northridge’s coach, summed up the situation for his team when he held up his thumb and index finger a quarter of an inch apart and said, with teeth clenched, “I am so tired of being this close.”

CSUN scored the first three points of the final game. “I thought it was over right there,” Price said. “You figure all we had to do was side-out.”

The way UCLA scored the match-winning points made it all the more frustrating.

Coley Kyman missed on a high-percentage hitting attempt at the net making it match point. The Bruins’ Carl Henkel then made it official with a service ace that landed among three Matadors, all of whom balked at going for the ball.

Northridge seemed of the verge of collapse after the Bruins cruised to an easy win in the third game.

Instead, the Matadors came back with an overpowering performance of their own behind hitter Neil Coffman, who had a match-high 21 kills.