Bruegl leads CMS to Senior Night sweep over Oxy

(Watch Postmatch Interview with senior Hilary Bruegl here)

CLAREMONT, Calif. – Down in both the second and third sets, the No. 25 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's volleyball team came back to win both sets and earn a 3-0 win over Occidental on Tuesday night at Ducey Gymnasium on Senior Day. The win pushed CMS to 22-5 overall and 10-5 in SCIAC play, and secured the team the No. 4 seed in the SCIAC Postseason Tournament which begins next week at top-seeded Cal Lutheran.

The lone CMS senior, setter Hilary Bruegl, and the team came out and won the first set over the Occidental 25-16 as they led for the duration of the set, with the exception of the first few points. Tied 3-3 in the first set, CMS put some distance between itself and Occidental by going on an 8-2 run led by junior OH Regina Mullen who had three of her 10 kills of the match during the stretch. CMS' largest lead of the first set was nine.

The second set didn't start out as well for the Athenas as they fell behind by as many as 12 points at 16-4 after an attack error. The Athenas then ran off 11-straight points to narrow the Tigers' lead to 16-15, capped off by a kill from freshman OH Nicole Kerkhof. The freshman had a match-high 13 kills for the Athenas. All even at 23, the Athenas didn't take its first lead of the set until a Tiger error made it 24-23. A service error for the Tigers followed to give the Athenas the second set.

CMS also faced a deficit in the third set, down by as many as five points on numerous occasions. Down 18-12, CMS ran off eight of the next nine points to take the lead. Freshman MB Quinn Morrison got the final point of the match for CMS with a kill.

In addition to Kerkhof, both sophomore OH Audrey Breitwieser and Mullen were in double figure kills with 11 and 10, respectively. Breitwieser added 10 digs while junior L Megan Coleman led CMS with 15 and sophomore L Arianna Sifuentes had 11. Bruegl had a team-high 39 assists to go along with two kills and four digs in her final regular season home match for CMS.

Stephanie Gann led Occidental with 11 kills while Madyson Cassidy had 18 digs.

Next up for the Athenas is a road match at Redlands on Saturday, Nov. 2 to close out the regular season, followed by the SCIAC Postseason Tournament the following week.

Boxscore: http://cmsathletics.org/sports/wvball/2013-14/boxscores/20131029_ghu0.xml

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