It was not quite the rematch that Stanford had in mind at No. 7 Northridge last night. The sixth-ranked men’s volleyball team was looking to make it two-for-two against the Matadors, but fell short, losing in three games, 30-25, 31-29 and 30-24.

Stanford (5-3, 2-3 MPSF) was facing Northridge (5-2, 3-1) for the second time this season after winning in four games at a preseason tournament earlier this month. They were not exactly the same teams that played on Jan. 4, though.

Northridge’s middle blocker Cody Loe returned to the lineup after missing the first meeting, while Stanford freshman outside hitter Spencer McLachlin was out with an ankle injury. Loe finished with seven kills and two blocks.

“Loe is a good player, but not as big a factor as we expected him to be,” Stanford coach John Kosty said. “The outcome was dictated more by our play and their play. We were streaky in point scoring on offense and also streaky siding out, and that was our downfall.”

In Stanford’s win, one of the biggest differences was that the Cardinal made fewer service errors. Last night, serving was once again key.

“Even though the serving column may look even [on the stat sheet], CSU by far outserved us,” Kosty said. “They scored a lot of their points from serving, not true aces, but balls that put us into a free ball situation. And that gives them the opportunity to score another point.”

The Cardinal had six service aces and 18 errors, while the Matadors served seven aces and missed 20. Five Stanford players notched at least one ace, with senior outside hitter Matt Ceran tallying two. All seven aces were served by Tanner Nua, who also missed a match-high six.

“Tanner Nua was by far their best server,” Kosty said. “He is a big kid, a left-handed opposite hitter and he was serving tough and giving us big problems.”

On offense, the Cardinal was led by sophomore Evan Romero with 14 kills, while redshirt junior outside hitter Jesse Meredith chipped in nine. Romero led all players with 10 kills and he and junior middle blocker Brandon Williams each had two block assists, though the Cardinal managed only three to the Matadors’ eight.

Eric Vance recorded a match-high 15 kills and Kevin McKniff led the way with five blocks.

Northridge jumped out to a 9-5 lead to start the match, but a four-point Stanford run tied it. Nua served seven points in a row, including back-to-back aces, to put the game out of reach. The Matadors won it, 30-25, on a kill.

It was Stanford with the early lead in the second game, going up 10-5, with three of those points coming on aces. However, when Nua came to the line at 12-10, the Matadors caught up and went ahead by four. Down by a point, Romero spurred a Stanford run with three kills in a row and the Cardinal built a 22-19 advantage. Stanford had its first game point of the night at 29-28, but Northridge scored the last three points of the game to win 31-29.

The Matadors did not let up in the third game, going ahead 2-1 and never relinquishing the lead. They led by as much as eight and — though Stanford held off three match points — closed out the victory, 30-24.

It has been a week of upsets around the MPSF, with more than just Stanford losing to lower-ranked teams. On Wednesday, No. 11 USC held on to beat No. 5 UCLA in five games and No. 10 UC-Irvine took only four games to hand second-ranked Pepperdine its first loss of the season.

After winning three in a row, the Cardinal has now dropped two consecutively, but has a chance to end that slide tonight at UC-Santa Barbara. The Gauchos (1-5, 0-3) got the first win of their season against Pacific at the Elephant Bar Invitational, but have lost three straight since then, most recently to Northridge last week.

“We need to really improve our serving and passing [on Friday night],” Kosty. “It always goes back to that — we need to continually be a good serving and passing team if we want to win.”

Santa Barbara will be looking for its first conference victory, while Stanford will be looking to bump its MPSF record back up to .500. Jeff Menzel is the top hitter for the Gauchos with 120 kills — four times as many as any of his teammates.

Sam Moisenco leads in blocks with 27 and Max Klineman — brother of Alix, an All-American freshman on the Stanford women’s team — is averaging nearly 11 assists per game.’

After tonight, the Cardinal will return home to host Pacific next Thursday night and Ball State on Sunday. The following week, it will be a replay of this week’s action with Northridge and Santa Barbara coming to the Farm.