California State University, Northridge director of Women’s Volleyball John Price has officially announced the Matadors’ 2023 schedule.

CSUN opens its 29-match regular season on Aug. 25 in Santa Clara, the first of 11 non-conference matches the Matadors will play before the Big West season gets underway Sept. 19 at Cal State Bakersfield.

“We feel that this is a competitive schedule that will challenge us as we prepare for an exciting Big West season,” said Price. “The transfer portal has made it really difficult to gauge how other teams have improved from the 2022 season but we should be a much-improved team from last year. We feel like we’ve improved our roster and with a full spring of training and the continuity of our coaching staff, we’re looking forward to seeing how much we’ve improved as we head into the fall.”2023_WVB_Schedule

In addition to the season opener against Santa Clara, CSUN will take on California Baptist and San Jose State on Sept. 26 at the Santa Clara/SJSU Invitational. The Matadors then close the opening month of the season at home against Fresno State on Aug. 30, the first time CSUN has hosted a non-conference match in Northridge since the 2018 season.

“Typically we’re on the road the first four weekends of the season so it’s nice to have a non-conference match at home this year,” said Price. “Although we’re on the road the other three weekends, all of those matches are on the West Coast so it will be nice to be relatively close to home.”

CSUN opens September at Fresno State (Sept. 1) before traveling to Oregon to meet Eastern Washington and the host Portland Pilots on Sept. 8 before wrapping up the trip against Wyoming on Sept. 9. The Matadors then close the non-conference portion of the season in the Bay Area, taking on Texas-Rio Grande Valley, San Jose State and San Francisco at the USF Challenge (Sept. 15-16).

The 20-match Big West season opens with a two-match road trip that sends the Matadors to Bakersfield (Sept. 19) and Hawai’i (Sept. 24). CSUN then opens a season-long four-match homestand against UC Riverside (Sept. 29) and UC Davis (Sept. 30) to close the month of September.

October opens with the Matadors hosting UC San Diego on Oct. 6 and Long Beach State on Oct. 7 before the Matadors travel to Cal State Fullerton (Oct. 13) and UC Irvine (Oct. 14). CSUN will play three of its final four matches in October at home, welcoming Cal Poly (Oct. 19), Cal State Bakersfield (Oct. 26) and Hawai’i (Oct. 27) around a road match at UC Santa Barbara (Oct. 21).

The final month of the regular season has the Matadors on the road for five of their last six matches. CSUN travels to Long Beach State (Nov. 3), UC San Diego (Nov. 4), UC Davis (Nov. 8) and UC Riverside (Nov. 11) before wrapping up the regular season at home against UC Irvine (Nov. 17) and Cal State Fullerton (Nov. 18).

The first-ever Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship is scheduled for Nov. 22-25 at Long Beach State’s Walter Pyramid.

“We’re super excited about the first Big West Championship tournament,” said Price. “The Big West is a very good volleyball conference and with only six teams qualifying it’s going to be an ultra-competitive season. There’s a good chance that all 11 teams will be in the hunt for the six postseason spots so that kind of competition will be exciting and a great experience for our student-athletes.”