A familiar foe awaits CMS in SCIAC Tournament finals after sweep of La Verne

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – For the third-straight season, the No. 9 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team is heading to the championship match of the SCIAC Postseason Tournament to face top-seed Cal Lutheran. Similar to 2014, this season CMS swept No. 3 seed La Verne to advance to the SCIAC finals. CMS defeated La Verne 25-20, 25-18, 25-13 on Nov. 5 in the 2015 SCIAC semifinals which were hosted by Cal Lutheran at Gilbert Arena.

The championship match at Cal Lu against the Regals is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 7 at 6 p.m. The match can be watched live here. Cal Lu has swept CMS in the previous two championship matches, but CMS won the most recent regular season meeting at home, 3-2 on Oct. 23.

Against La Verne (20-8), the first two sets remained tight through the first portion, with the match tied or La Verne even leading at times. But in the first two sets, CMS (25-5) managed to pull away late for a 2-0 lead.

The first set was even at 14-14 after a CMS attack error. A kill by sophomore outside hitter Crystal Anderson (CMC) bookended by La Verne errors gave CMS a 17-14 advantage in the set and they would go on to the 25-20 first set win which is as close as any of the three sets would be. Anderson finished with 13 kills on the night.

After leading early, CMS let La Verne take the lead back at 11-10 and La Verne would stretch the margin out to as many as three points at 14-11. Anderson once again gave CMS the lead, this time at 17-16 off of an assist from sophomore setter Clara Madsen (CMC). That point started a decisive 9-2 run for CMS to end the set.

With the exception of a 1-1 tie, CMS led for the duration of the third set. Up 3-2, CMS put away five-straight points to take control of the set.

Junior outside hitter Nicole Kerkhof (CMC) led CMS with 15 kills and 18 digs while Madsen added 27 assists and 10 digs. Two players each had six kills for La Verne as La Verne was limited to just a .067 attack percentage.

Box score

Postgame Interview (Coach Vlasich and Crystal Anderson)

By Chris Watts
Director of Athletics Communication
Claremont McKenna College

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