CMS Volleyball Sweeps Occidental to Start SCIAC Play 2-0

EAGLE ROCK, Calif. - The fifth-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's volleyball team extended its SCIAC win streak to 51 matches with a 3-0 win over Occidental on Saturday afternoon.

The win improves CMS to 8-3 on the season and 2-0 in SCIAC play, marking 45 straight regular season conference wins and six SCIAC Postseason Tournament wins, since it last fell to a league team (to Chapman in 2019). 

Set scores were 25-9, 25-15, 25-14 as the Athenas had their second dominant performance of the weekend, after defeating Chapman 25-14, 25-8, 25-11 on Friday night at home. 

Georgia McGovern had 27 assists for the Athenas, and also put down eight kills in 11 attempts for a .727 hitting percentage. Lauren Parker added eight kills in 15 attempts, hitting .467, while Jenna Holmes had a team-high 12 kills to go along with 11 digs, while Dede Carranza had a team-high 18 digs. 

CMS jumped out to an 8-1 lead in the first set, with Brenna Bell and Brooke McKee tallying a pair of kills each. With the score 12-5, CMS went on an 8-0 run, with Holmes tallying four kills and Holmes three during the run. 

CMS started fast again in the second set, jumping out to a 9-2 lead. The third set stayed close for a while, with the score knotted up at 8-8 before CMS had four straight points to get some separation, the last two on Bell kills. Audrey Sawyer had a block and a kill and Samantha Riter had an ace to get CMS on the cusp of match poing, before the Athenas earned the win on an Occidental error. 

CMS will be back in action on Friday when it hosts Redlands for a 7 p.m. contest.