CSUN to Make Its TV Debut in Volleyball

They are ready for Prime Ticket but perhaps not as prepared for prime time as their coach had hoped.

The Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team will make its television debut tonight at Pepperdine in a match to be carried live at 8 on cable.

Unfortunately for CSUN, its cast could be shy a key player--setter Matt Unger.

Unger, a redshirt sophomore, has been missing from CSUN’s lineup all season while attending interim classes in an effort to regain his athletic eligibility. That effort apparently has fallen short.

“It looks like he is .05 grade points from being eligible,” John Price, CSUN’s coach, said Tuesday. “He thinks a grade might be wrong, but I’m fearing the worst.”

Unger’s absence would leave freshman Gary Reznick as the Matadors’ only setter.

Faced with such a prospect earlier this month, Price said he would have “thrown in the towel.” However, Reznick has progressed rapidly on a force-fed diet of high-caliber volleyball.

Last week, top-ranked UCLA needed to score seven consecutive points to defeat CSUN in five games. At the Santa Barbara tournament last weekend, Northridge defeated UCLA and the University of Manitoba, Canada’s top team, on its way to a 6-2 finish.

The Matadors are 1-1 in Western Intercollegiate Athletic Assn. play; Pepperdine is 2-0.