Statement Win: CMS Volleyball Sweeps Chapman to Move Back into First Place Tie

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The No. 5 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team dominated the first and third sets and pulled out a tight one in between as it earned a 3-0 win over Chapman to move into a tie for first place in the SCIAC with the Panthers on Saturday afternoon at Roberts Pavilion.

Set scores were 25-12, 26-24, 25-12 as the Athenas earned the sweep on their home court. With the win, CMS improves to 19-3 overall and 10-1 in the SCIAC, pulling even with Chapman, which slips to 17-3 overall and 10-1 in league play. The Athenas avenged their only conference loss, a 3-2 defeat to Chapman on Oct. 1, and would now have the tiebreaker for the top seed in the league tournament due to fewer sets lost head-to-head against the Panthers.  

The Athenas had a balanced offensive attack as six players had between five and eight kills, led by junior Lucila Grinspan and junior Regan Dinovitz with eight apiece. Junior Melanie Moore had her hand on five blocks and Dinovitz had four as CMS held a 9-1 advantage in blocks as a team. Senior Sarah Tritschler led the defense with 14 digs, while senior Pheobe Madsen had six kills, 17 assists and 10 digs on the afternoon. As a team, CMS also had 13 service aces, led by five from Grinspan and three apiece from Madsen and Tritschler. The Athenas only allowed Chapman three aces on their side, a 10-point swing which contributed to the final margin. 



The rematch with Chapman has been a key date on the calendar ever since Oct. 2, according to Madsen. 

"We talked in our pregame meeting about how when we lost to them, as soon as the last ball dropped, we were all obviously really frustrated about the loss," Madsen said. "But we were more thinking about how this is an opportunity to grow and an opportunity to come back and play them again. Since then, everything has been kind of leading up to this day as a chance to showcase how much we've gone through."

CMS came out flying and took a 9-1 lead in the first set, as Grinspan had three service aces during the run to help stake the Athenas to a big early lead. The Panthers got back within 12-6, but CMS opened the lead back up to 18-8, with Moore picking up a pair of kills during the run. Sophomore Jackie Jones finished off the set with a kill to give the Athenas a 25-12 first-set win. 

The second set saw CMS get out to an early lead again, but this time Chapman had an answer. CMS led 11-3 early on after a kill from senior Amanda Walker, but the Panthers rallied to pull in front, using a 10-2 run take a 19-16 lead. After a CMS timeout, though, the Athenas rattled off five straight points to take a 21-19 advantage, with Jones coming up with two big kills during the run. CMS had two set points at 24-22 that Chapman was able to erase, but Madsen snapped the 24-24 tie with an emphatic kill and Dinovitz had an unassisted kill on an overpass to finish off the set 26-24. 

The third set swung with an 8-0 CMS run that turned a 6-5 lead into a huge 14-5 advantage. Grinspan had three kills during the run, one after a diving save from Tritschler to keep a point alive and make the score 8-5 to swing the momentum of the set.

"Sarah is so big," said Madsen. "Most people in the conference hit away from Sarah because they know how good she is, but (Chapman) hits crosscourt, and so it was Sarah's night tonight. It was a showcase of how great she is."

Chapman had one final run to close to within 15-10, but Madsen had a kill and an ace, and Grinspan added a kill to push the lead to 18-10, and Tritschler finished off the match with two straight aces for a 25-12 win and a 3-0 win. 

CMS will be back in action on Tuesday when it travels to Caltech for a 7 p.m. contest, before returning home for Senior Night against Pomona-Pitzer on Friday.