Price Hoping CSUN Is Ready From the Start

NORTHRIDGE —  Last season the Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team played with the heart, hustle and energy that Coach John Price expected.

Well, for a week it did.

But it’s that final week of the 1996 season, in which the Matadors upset No. 2 Long Beach State in the playoffs and nearly upset eventual national champion UCLA, that gives Price hope this season can be better.

“They’ve been great in practice so far,” said Price, whose team opens with a nonconference match at 7 tonight at USC. “We’ve had great practices in terms of effort.”

But Price will remain cautiously optimistic until he sees that effort on the floor match after match. He watched a team with the same nucleus sleepwalk through parts of last season, which Northridge finished 16-12, though still ranked fifth in the nation.

“They haven’t proven to me in the last three years they are capable of playing with heart on every play and that’s what it takes,” Price said. “If these guys play hard on every single point, we will be fine. But I’m worried they aren’t going to do that.”

It took what Price called a “team crisis” to bring about a change in time for the playoffs last year.

“We just collapsed,” he said. “The coaches were frustrated with the players. The players hated the coaches. The players hated each other. . . . Everyone was pointing fingers.”

But the Matadors had an emotional 3 1/2-hour team meeting just before the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation playoffs, and finally put aside their differences before upsetting Long Beach State in the first round.

Then in the semifinals, Northridge played well in a loss to UCLA, which just proved to Price how good the team could have been all year.

And how good it can be this year.

Price is hanging his hopes of improved consistency on outside hitters Jason Hughes, Collin Smith and Chad Strickland, who are in their third season starting together.

“All three of those guys are capable of dominating a match,” Price said.

And Hughes and Smith are seniors, “so hopefully they will have a little desperation to their play,” Price said.

The Matadors will have to do without Hughes for at least the first few weeks of the season because his Fall semester grades made him ineligible.

Price expects him to raise his grades with a between-semesters class so he can return late in January.

In the meantime his spot will be filled by Mike Szymanski or David Money, two of eight freshmen on the roster.

Other than Hughes, Smith and Strickland, the only starter who has played in an MPSF match is middle blocker Eric Klootwyk, a senior.

The Matadors’ setter will be sophomore Dan Fisher, a transfer from Hawaii. Fisher was a backup setter at Dos Pueblos High in Santa Barbara and he went to Hawaii as an outside hitter.

“He’s come a long way since the first day he walked in the office and he was rather shocked when I asked him how his setting was,” Price said.

“I think he’s going to be pretty good this year.”

The final middle blocker spot will be determined by a battle between Money and freshmen Sean Callahan and Troy Wellington.

Northridge begins the MPSF season in a familiar position, as the third or fourth best team in the Mountain Division, behind UCLA, Pepperdine and perhaps UC Santa Barbara.

But with three teams from each division, plus two wildcards, advancing to the MPSF playoffs, that’s good enough for Price.

“It’d be great if we could go out there and win the division, but my goal every year is to just get in the door and take my chances,” he said.

“If you can get in [the playoffs], you’ve got a shot.”