Athenas advance to SCIAC Tournament Final after sweep of La Verne

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – In Thursday night's SCIAC Tournament Semi-final match, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team beat familiar conference foe, La Verne 3-0 (25-16, 26-14, 25-18). The Athenas will return to the tournament final against Cal Lutheran for the second year in a row. The match is set for Saturday, Nov. 8 at 6 p.m.

During the regular season, the Leos and the Athenas played two nip and tuck five set matches and each team emerged with a win. This afternoon, CMS brought the confidence and intensity to win the postseason match in three sets.

In the first set, the Athenas took an early lead highlighted by a long point with a superb dig by junior Arianna Sifuentes (SCR) that gave CMS the 17-7 advantage. CMS went ahead 20-8 before ULV was able to put together a small run on Kailey Faust's serve. The Athenas easily took the set 25-16.

The blocking stats for the second set do not depict the incredible blocks by freshmen Mariah Rigg (CMC) and Margaux Arntson (CMC) that forced ULV to get a dig right off a block and regroup to sustain the rally. While the second set was closer than the first, the Athenas were able to close it out with kills by Arntson and sophomore Nicole Kerkhof (CMC) at the end.

The Athenas showed their dominance in the final set of the match. With momentum on their side, CMS went on a six point run on Tanner Hoke's (CMC) serve to gain some separation. CMS reorganized well during broken plays and maintained the intensity through the final point.

With the highest hitting percentage on the night, junior Audrey Breitwieser (CMC) totaled ten kills with only one error for a .429 average. Kerkhof led the Athenas with 15 kills, four in the third set.

Megan Coleman (CMC) accounted for just 13 of the team's 53 digs. Kerkhof and Sifuentes picked up 11 and eight digs respectively.

CMS returns to Cal Lutheran to face the Regals at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8 for the SCIAC Tournament Final and the automatic qualification to the NCAA Tournament. Cal Lutheran beat Pomona Pitzer (3-0) in the other semi-final match.

Read Cal Lu's release

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