CMS Volleyball Moves to 10-0 With Sweep of Cal Lutheran

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Melanie Williams (16 kills, 20 attempts) hit .800 and Audrey Sawyer (12 kills, 16 attempts) hit .750 as the second-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's volleyball team earned a 3-0 win over Cal Lutheran on Saturday evening at Roberts Pavilion.

Set scores were 25-18, 25-22 and 25-13 as the Athenas finished off the victory with a dominant third set. With the win, CMS moves to 10-0 on the season and begins SCIAC play with a 3-0 league record after sweeping Whittier, La Verne and Cal Lutheran in the last five days. The Regals slip to 4-9 overall and 2-1 in the SCIAC with the loss. 

Led by Williams and Sawyer, CMS hit a whopping .478 as a team on the day, committing only nine errors to go along with their 59 kills. Georgia McGovern had 27 assists and Spencer Hagenbuch had 17 while quarterbacking an offense that ran to near perfection. 

Although the Athenas had an efficient day on offense, Cal Lutheran hung around in the first two sets before CMS was able to pull away at the end. The first set was tied 15-15 before a 5-0 CMS run gave the Athena command, with Williams bookending the run with a pair of kills. Sawyer had a kill to make it 24-18, and Jackie Jones finished off the set with a kill. 

The second set came down to the wire, as CMS led just 22-20 before Sawyer was able to put one down for a 23-20 lead. Morgan Given made it 23-21, before Jenna Holmes had a kill to bring CMS to set point. Maci Haddad fought off one of the first set point, but Jones followed with her second set-ending kill of the match to put CMS ahead 2-0. 

The Athenas then didn't let Cal Lutheran hang around very long in the third set, using a 4-0 run for a 5-1 lead behind two Williams kills, and then using another 4-0 run to go ahead 9-2, behind two more Williams kills. Back-to-back Holmes aces made it 15-4, and after Cal Lutheran clawed back within 16-11, CMS finished off the match on a 6-0 run, capped off by two straight Holmes kills to end it. 

CMS will be back in action on Tuesday night for a road match at Caltech, before returning home to face Redlands on Friday night at 7 p.m.