CMS Volleyball Gets Back on Winning Track, Sweeps La Verne in Three Sets

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team bounced back from its first conference loss at Cal Lutheran on Friday night to take a 3-0 win over La Verne on Saturday afternoon at Roberts Pavilion, maintaining a two-game lead in the SCIAC.

Set scores were 25-21, 25-23, 25-21 as the Athenas improve to 18-3 overall and 9-1 in the SCIAC. La Verne sees its record slip to 13-9 overall and 5-5 in conference play with the loss. 

In yesterday's loss to Cal Lutheran, the Athenas led 23-20 in the fourth set, two points from the match, before the Regals rattled off the final five points to force a fifth. CMS reversed that script this afternoon, rallying back from down 23-20 in the second for the final five points to come back for a 25-23 win and take a 2-0 lead. 

The run started with a kill from sophomore outside hitter Lucila Grinspan, and was followed by two straight La Verne errors to tie the score. Grinspan then put the Athenas ahead 24-23, off a rare assist from middle hitter Melanie Moore. After a timeout from La Verne, junior opposite Amanda Walker capped off the run with a service ace to give CMS the 25-23 win. 

After closing out the second set on her serve, Walker started the third set serving and helped CMS jump out to a 4-0 lead before the 9-0 run spanning two sets ended. More had two kills and a block to key the quick spurt to give CMS early control of the third set. A Grinspan kill capped off another 4-0 run to give the Athenas a commanding 13-5 lead as they seemed to be on their way to an easy third-set win. 

La Verne kept battling, though, and used a 5-0 run to come all the way back to pull within 23-21 and create some pressure on the CMS side of the net. Walker, though, answered with a kill, and then combined with Moore on the winning block for a 25-21 win in the third and a 3-0 win in the match. 

Athenas win! Moore and Walker combine on a block after La Verne made it interesting in the third, cutting it to 23-21 before CMS gets the final two points. CMS takes it 3-0 and is now 9-1 in SCIAC. pic.twitter.com/k9Z4lmAeWf

— CMS Athletics (@AthleticsCMS) October 14, 2018

The first set saw CMS jump out to a 9-4 lead early, as freshman Jackie Jones got things started with kills on the first two points, and Grinspan capped off the run with an ace. With the score 15-11, the Athenas took control with a 4-0 run, as Walker had three straight kills to cap off the quick spurt. La Verne used a 5-1 run to close to within 23-19, but junior Phoebe Madsen had a kill and sophomore middle Regan Dinovitz capped off the set with a kill for a 25-21 win. 

Walker led the Athenas with 12 kills, while Dinovitz had 10 in 17 attempts to hit .529 on the day. Madsen finished with 30 assists and six kills while spending some time at outside hitter. Junior libero Sarah Tritschler had 13 digs to lead the defense, while Grinspan had 12. 

CMS will be back in action on Friday when it travels to Redlands for a 7 p.m. contest, before returning home on Saturday to face Caltech at 4 p.m.