Emotionless CSUN Overcome by Portland State

Coach Walt Ker shook his head and grimaced in frustration after watching his Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team’s 4-15, 15-12, 15-13, 15-9 nonconference loss to Portland State on Tuesday at CSUN.

It was bad enough that his team lost its 11th game of the season, giving it 4 more losses than last year’s national championship squad.

What really frustrated Ker was how the Lady Matadors went down against the nation’s No. 1 Division II team.

After beating fourth-ranked UC Riverside the night before in a 1-game playoff, and after crushing the Vikings in the first game, the Lady Matadors did something Ker did not expect--they played without emotion.

“The most frustrating thing was I felt we were flat and we didn’t have anyone to charge the team up,” Ker said. “Usually when one player gets down, the other five pick her up. Tonight we didn’t have one girl to pick the other five up.”

And although the apathy was frustrating, what really worries Ker is a possible repeat performance.

CSUN, which dropped to 29-11, will play at Loyola Marymount, a Division I college, at 7:30 tonight. The Lady Matadors then will play host to Chapman in an NCAA regional match Dec. 3, 6 days before the national finals.

“Because of what we did against Riverside, I really feel more confident that they can play at a higher level,” Ker said. “If they can do that once, they can do it five times.”

But the Lady Matadors could not do it once the night after. After winning the first game and taking a 10-7 lead in the second, CSUN was outscored, 38-24, the remainder of the match.

CSUN, which had displayed near-flawless defense against Riverside, caved in against the Vikings (32-5), who hit an impressive .300 in the last 3 games.

“It’s all interrelated. Part of the mental game is being in the right spot at the right time,” setter Karen Langston said.

And if CSUN and Portland State meet again for the national championship--which they did in 1983, ’84 and ‘85--Langston is confident that the Lady Matadors will be in the right place at the right time.

“Portland is a beatable team. We are physically a better team, we proved that,” she said. “Even the games we lost we were still right there. And even with us playing bad, we were still right there.

“There’s not a team in the country that can beat us if we’re playing well.”