No. 2 CMS Volleyball Sweeps No. 7 NYU, Millikin to Finish 4-0 Weekend

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team, ranked No. 2 in the nation, dominated five of the six sets on its way to sweeps of No. 7 NYU and Millikin on Saturday afternoon on the second day of the Pacific Coast Classic, while taking the third set 29-27 against NYU to finish off the key top-10 win.

CMS finished off the weekend with a 4-0 record, after defeating UC Santa Cruz and Babson on Friday. Set scores on Saturday were 25-16, 25-12, 29-27 against NYU and 25-15, 25-18, 25-19 against Millkin. 

Jenna Holmes had 21 kills in 42 attempts against NYU, with Jackie Jones adding 11 kills in 21 attempts. Holmes added 12 more on 19 attempts against Millikin, without an error, while Audrey Sawyer had a remarkable stretch when she closed out the second set with four straight service aces to turn a 21-18 lead into a 25-18 victory. 

CMS appeared to be on its way to a statement win against NYU with 25-16 and 25-12 wins in the first two sets. The seventh-ranked Violets, though, dug down and were able to earn two set points at 24-23 and 25-24. Sawyer fought off the first set point with a kill, and Holmes added one to knot the score 25-25, following by a second straight to make it 26-25. 

After NYU pulled even, Holmes had another kill to make the score 27-26, but Ella Weider answered for NYU to once again knot it up. Jones gave CMS its third match point, and a Violet error was able to secure the victory for the Athenas. 

Georgia McGovern (25) and Spencer Hagenbuch (18) combined for 43 assists, and Dede Carranza (13), Holmes (12) and Isabel Yau-Weeks (11) were all in double figures in digs, as Holmes picked up her third double-double in the first three matches.  Sawyer finished the second match with five aces, and was 6-for-9 on attacks. 

CMS will be back in action next weekend at the East-West Battle, hosted by Emory in Atlanta. The Athenas open against Johns Hopkins on Friday, a match which will pit the 2017 and 2019 national champions against each other. The Athenas will then play Trinity and Emory on Saturday, one year after defeating both of those teams on the same day at Cal Lutheran, when Trinity was ranked No. 1 and Emory was ranked No. 2.