CMS Volleyball Heads to Wartburg for NCAA Regionals

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's volleyball team, ranked No. 3 in the country, will head to No. 4 Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa for the NCAA Division III Volleyball Championships, meeting up with Aurora in the first round on Friday.

The winner of the CMS-Aurora game will face the winner of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Bethel in the regional semifinals on Saturday. The other half of the eight-team regional features host Wartburg, which is undefeated at 27-0, Cornell College, Ohio Northern and Colorado College. 

Similar to the last NCAA Tournament, the Athneas find themselves in a challenging bracket featuring three of the top seven teams in the nation in the current rankings, as well as six of the top 25. Colorado College is currently ranked No. 7, while Ohio Northern is No. 17, Bethel is No. 19 and Wisconsin-Stevens Point is No. 22.  

The Athenas, though, have prepared for this type of scenario with a demanding schedule, which including beating the No. 1 (Trinity) and No. 2 (Emory) ranked teams in the country at the time on the same day. CMS also traveled to Calvin, where it met top-six teams Hope and Calvin on the same day, splitting the two matches (defeating Hope and falling to Calvin in four for the only loss of the year), as well as Ohio Northern on the second day. 

CMS (27-1) earned its way into the NCAA Tournament with a 3-2 win over Chapman in the SCIAC Championship match on Saturday at Roberts Pavilion. Jenna Holmes earned the Most Outstanding Player honor after 20 kills in the finals. 

The Athenas earned the 2017 national championship, and have gone 27-4 in each of the last two full seasons in 2018 and 2019, but fell in the second round to Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Carthage, respectively. This year, they enter the NCAA Tournament with a best-ever record of 27-1, including the first 16-0 season in SCIAC that the Athenas have ever recorded. 

Aurora earned its way in with an automatic bid by winning the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference in four sets over Concorida (Wisconsin).  The Spartans have a 20-8 overall record on the year, including two losses to Hope and one to Calvin in common opponents with the Athenas.