Brigham Young Just Too Old for Matadors

Cal State Northridge really couldn’t get any younger.

The Matadors, baby faces of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, played three freshmen, two sophomores and a junior for most of Friday night.

But a 15-6, 15-9, 15-10 loss to Brigham Young gave the Matadors exactly what they need . . . a decent night of work against an upper-echelon team.

After a truly awful performance in the first game, the Matadors kept it interesting against third-ranked Brigham Young, which came into Northridge off an impressive victories over Stanford and two over Ohio State, with two-time All-American Ryan Millar in the middle.

Millar, a former middle blocker at Highland High, had 16 kills in 28 attempts, statistics that could have been better had setter Hector Lebron not been playing with a sore back, upsetting some continuity on the offense to the middle.

But even Millar acknowledged that there was another big man on the court, Eckhard Walter, who had 32 kills for Northridge (1-4, 1-3 in MPSF play).

“That big guy was banging balls,” Millar said.

Walter, a 6-foot-10 opposite hitter from Germany is, no surprise, a freshman, but his level of play has been anything but amateurish.

“We never, ever got close to where we wanted to be with him [defensively],” Coach Carl McGown of BYU said.

Northridge, which was swept in 80 minutes Wednesday at UCLA, came out timid against BYU (9-0, 7-0), falling behind, 10-0, in the first game.

The second game delivered some intrigue, with the Matadors closing to within 13-9 on a block by Walter before BYU eventually closed out on his hitting error.

Brigham Young was almost caught in a subbing snafu in the third game, emptying its bench after it took an 11-3 lead. The Matadors came back to within 13-10 partly because the Cougars hit the substitution limit of six per game and could not get all of their starters back on the court.

Still, this is the third-ranked team in the country. Two blocks by Millar and an ace by Michael Wall ended the match.

Steve Russell, former Royal High middle blocker, had seven kills in his first college start for Northridge.

At times, Russell looked like a freshman, getting in the way of setter John Baxter or misreading a hitting attempt by BYU.

But, as Coach Jeff Campbell of Northridge said, “He’s only 18. And he’s our No. 1 middle [blocker] right now.”

Ryan Denihan, also from Royal, played well until he sprained his right ankle in the second game and did not return.

Mac Wilson, a former Highland middle blocker, had nine kills for BYU.