CMS Volleyball Tested, But Prevails with Two Hard-Fought Wins

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The No. 3 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team trailed in both matches, but were able to respond to both tests by earning a 3-1 win over No. 25 Wisconsin Eau-Claire, and a 3-2 win over Southwestern on Saturday on the second day of the Pacific Coast Classic at Roberts Pavilion.

CMS improves to 3-0 on the season, despite dropping the first set to Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the second and third sets to Southwestern. Set scores were 21-25, 25-18, 25-21, 25-16 against Wisconsin-Eau Claire and 25-21, 21-25, 22-25, 25-10, 15-6 against Southwestern.

Jenna Holmes, the reigning Division III National Player of the Year, had a career-high 25 kills against Southwestern with only four errors (hitting .389), passing her previous high of 23 kills set in the NCAA Regional Finals against Trinity (Texas) last year. She had the final three kills in a row to close out the fifth set against Southwestern and sew up the win for the Athenas.  

Audrey Sawyer chipped in with a career-high with 16 kills, hitting .577, surpassing her previous career high of 14 set as a first-year. Georgia McGovern had a career-high in assists with 55, passing the 52 she had in her collegiate debut against UC Santa Cruz. 

McGovern also had a huge match against Wisconsin-Eau Claire, tallying 40 assists, 18 digs, and nine kills in 13 attempts. Brooke McKee led CMS in kills in that match with 14, while Holmes had 11. 

CMS was in a 2-1 hole against Southwestern, but turned it up to another level for 25-10 and 15-6 wins over the last two sets. A 6-0 run early in the fourth set pushed CMS out to an 8-1 lead, with Holmes tallying three kills. Southwestern got back to within 9-5, but Izzy Sakoda and Sawyer each had two kills in another 6-0 run that pushed the lead to 15-5. Sakoda then had four service aces in a row to get the lead up to 23-7 before CMS settled for a 25-10 win to level the match at 2-2. 

McGovern started the fifth set with an ace, and Kelsey Polhemus and Holmes follwed with kills for a quick 3-0 lead. Brenna Bell combined on two straight blocks with two different middles, the first with Polhemus and the second with Sawyer, and then Sawyer followed with a kill to make it 8-2. Isabel Yau-Weeks had an ace to make it 10-4, and Sawyer had a block and a kill in succession to push the lead to 12-5. After the Pirates earned their last point, Holmes finished it off with three kills in a row. 

CMS will be back in action next weekend when it hosts the East-West Battle, facing No. 14 WashU on Friday and then battling No. 2 Trinity and No. 9 Johns Hopkins on Saturday.