Princeton Nearly Caps California Trip With Upset, Falls Just Short At #12 CSUN

Friday, February 1

Northridge, Calif.

7:00 PM PST

Princeton University

2-7

CSU-Northridge

6-5

Princeton

CSUN

Photo by: Brian McWalters

Princeton Nearly Caps California Trip With Upset, Falls Just Short At #12 CSUN

February 02, 2019 | Men's Volleyball

Box Score

The Princeton men's volleyball team nearly punctuated its season-opening nine-match road trip in dramatic fashion late Friday night (early Saturday morning for the East Coast crowd), but the 12th-ranked CSUN Matadors used one final surge to fend off an upset bid at The Matadome.

Led by another brilliant showing by Parker Dixon, Princeton pushed CSUN before falling 21-25, 25-20, 25-19, 20-25, 15-13. Dixon led all players with 24 kills — his second match this week with at least that many kills — and added eight blocks while hitting .487 to lead the Tiger charge. Classmate George Huhmann added 14 kills and five blocks, and he hit .385 for the match.

Trailing 2-1, Princeton showed its resolve in the fourth set by limiting the Matadors to a .000 hitting percentage in a 25-20 win. The Tiger defense, led by tough serving and a strong presence at the net, had a season-best 16 blocks in the match, including nine from Greg Luck. The offense hit .333 in the final set and led 12-10 late, but a CSUN kill and ace on consecutive points ignited a match-ending 5-1 run for CSUN, which improved to 6-5 on the season.

Princeton will return home with a 2-7 record, though six of those seven losses were to teams ranked in the AVCA Top 15 at the time — three of them were to top-five teams — and the seventh is to a Ball State team that is currently ranked 11th nationally. No other EIVA team has a played a schedule at that level this season, which should leave the Tigers well-prepared for the rigors of conference play when they open the league season next weekend with a pair of home matches against Charleston on ESPN+.