CMS Volleyball Celebrates Senior Day with Sweep of Occidental

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Izzy Sakoda (12) and Maxine Matheson-Lieber (11) combined for 23 kills on their senior day as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team closed out the regular season with a 3-0 win over Occidental on Saturday afternoon at Roberts Pavilion.

Set scores were 25-12, 25-23, 25-14 as CMS clinched the regular season SCIAC title outright at 14-2. The Athenas also picked up their 20th win of the season, as they head into the SCIAC Tournament as the top seed with a 20-5 overall record. Occidental finishes its season at 4-17 overall and 1-15 in the league. 

Matheson-Lieber set a new career high in kills with 11, hitting .346 for the game, while Sakoda had a season-high 12 kills, just two off her career best. Defending AVCA National Player of the Year Jenna Holmes was also part of the three-senior celebration pregame and contributed four kills and 15 digs. 

Georgia McGovern was originally part of the senior class as well, but will return for her fourth season next year, and nearly had a triple-double but finished with nine kills in 10 attempts to go with 21 assists and 11 digs. Dede Carranza had 16 digs and nine assists. 

CMS closed out the first set on an 11-0 run, turning a tight 14-12 set into a 25-12 win. Carranza had three aces during the spurt, before Matheson-Lieber had back-to-back kills to put the Athenas up 24-12, and Kelsey Polhemus finished it off with a kill. 

The second set was tight the whole way, and Occidental actually led 20-18 before Sakoda had two straight kills to tie it. Matheson-Lieber broke a 22-22 tie with a kill, and McGovern followed with another to make it 24-22. After the Tigers got one set point back, Polhemus had an emphatic kill on set point to put CMS ahead 2-0.

Occidental hung in for a while in the third set, but with the score 19-14, CMS scored the final six points to end it, with Matheson-Lieber and McGovern each recording two kills.

CMS will next look ahead to the postseason, when it will host a semifinal on Thursday night against the fourth seed, which will be determined at the conclusion of today's play. Whittier, Pomona-Pitzer and La Verne will be the other three teams in the field, and the Athenas will have the right to host Saturday's championship if it wins its semifinal on Thursday.