CMS Entertains Chapman on Saturday (4 p.m.) for SCIAC Championship

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CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team will play in its eighth straight SCIAC Championship match, and Chapman will play in its second straight, when the two league rivals meet in a 2019 finals rematch on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. at Roberts Pavilion.

CMS earned its way through to the championship with a 3-1 semifinal win over Cal Lutheran on Thursday night, bouncing back after dropping the first set. The second set was tied 23-23 before Jenna Holmes and Jackie Jones, who each had a team-high 14 kills, had back-to-back kills to tie the match at 1-1, before the Athenas were able to control the second and third sets with 25-18 and 25-17 wins. 

Chapman earned its way through with a 3-0 win over Pomona-Pitzer in its semifinal on Thursday, taking 26-24 wins in the first and third sets to win in dramatic fashion, despite the 3-0 final.

The two teams met in 2019 in the SCIAC championship, which the Athenas won at home at Roberts Pavilion 3-0. Chapman had handed CMS its only SCIAC loss during the regular season that year in Orange, which they almost did again this season, taking the Athenas to five sets in the final week before CMS escaped with a 3-2 win behind a career-high 22 kills from Jones. That win enabled the Athenas to finish off a perfect 16-0 regular season in SCIAC, the first time they have ever gone undefeated in league play. 

CMS has been a regular in the SCIAC Championship for the last decade, although they have usually faced Cal Lutheran, as the two rivals met six times from 2013-18, with each team winning three. In 2019, Chapman was able to break the two-team stranglehold and get through to the finals, although CMS was able to take the win for its third straight league crown. After a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Athenas are back in the finals again for the eighth straight tournament over a nine-year span. 

The winner of Saturday's match will receive the SCIAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament. CMS, which stands at 26-1 overall on the year with the only loss on the road to No. 6 Calvin, while also having wins over No. 1 Trinity, No. 2 Emory and No. 4 Hope, figures to have a strong resume if it needs one, but it can take matters into its own hands, and help its national seeding, with its fourth straight SCIAC Tournament win.