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Tigers Rally From Behind Facing Set Point To Upset The Matadors
March 26, 2011
The No.15 Pacific Tigers returned the the win column with a come from behind victory over the Cal State Northridge Matadors that moved their season win total to 10.
Set scores were: 17-25, 25-23, 25-18, and 26-24.
The Tigers came out and scored the first point of the contest on a redshirt sophomore Taylor Hughes (Fallbrook Calif.) kill but appeared a bit flat to start the first set. Pacific hung close wih the score tied at 12-12 but then relinquished five straight points to fall behind 17-12. Nothing seemed to go the Tigers way throuh the rest of the frame as they dropped the frame to the Matadors 25-17 following back-to-back Pacific attacking errors.
Pacific seemed to find some life in the break between sets one and two as they started off the second frame with a kill by by redshirt freshman Adam Troy (Loomis, Calif.). Troy, Hughes and redshirt junior Sean Daley (Moorpark, Calif.) each made large offensive contributions as the Tigers built a five point lead, up 12-7. CSU Northridge then battled back to bring a one point Tiger lead at the 16-15 mark and a timeout call for Pacific. Out of the break a back and forth point trading dual and with the Tigers now trailing 20-19 another timeout call for the Pacific. Redshirt junior Chaz Hindsley (Northfield, Ill.) slammed a ball down the line to even the score back at 20 a piece. Kills by Troy, Daley and two by junior outside hitter Florian Gornik (Schwechat, Austria) gave the Tigers the push they needed to take the set 25-23. in the frame the Tigers hit .414.
Set three was the Tigers most dominating frame. They led from the 2-1 mark and never looked back claiming the set 25-18.
In the fourth deciding frame the Tigers fell behind quickly 3-0. They responded slowly as they relinquished a service ace and found themselves on the wrong side of a 8-2 score. Then something changed and Pacific began to make a run closing the gap with kills by Hughes, Gornik and sophomore Matthew Houlihan (San Jose Calif.) bringing the Tigers within three down 16-13. Pacific trailed by three the rest of the way until they faces set point down 24-21 when they scored five straight points capped off by a CSUN attacking error to claim the set 26-24 and ultimately the match.
With the result Pacific improved to 10-15, (4-13 MPSF), CSU Northridge fell to 6-18, (4-13 MPSF).
Pacific is next in action hosting Pepperdine in the Alex G. Spans Center Friday April 1 in a match scheduled for 7:00pm.
