CMS Volleyball Earns Top Seed in SCIAC Tournament with Sweep of Chapman

ORANGE, Calif. – The eighth-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps volleyball team clinched the top seed in the SCIAC Tournament with a straight-set win over Chapman on Friday evening at the Hutton Center.

Set scores were 25-16, 25-14, 25-17 as CMS moves to 19-5 on the year and 13-2 in the SCIAC, securing at least a share of the regular season title and the top seed in the conference tournament. The Athenas can capture the regular season title outright with a win over last-place Occidental tomorrow, but even if they finished in a tie for first, they would hold the tiebreaker for the top seed.

CMS slowly pulled away in the first set, as Izzy Sakoda had a block and kill in a 4-0 run to put the Athenas ahead 7-2. Two Jenna Holmes kills forced a timeout at 12-5, and after Chapman got back within 17-13, CMS closed strong for a 25-16 win, with an Ashley Murashige ace, a Georgia McGovern kill, and a block from Dani Beder and Jenna Holmes accounting for the final three points.

In the second set, CMS used a 6-0 run to jump out to a 9-2 lead, with Brenna Bell, Holmes, Izzy Sakoda and Audrey Sawyer all providing kills. Sawyer had a block to give CMS a 19-9 lead, and Sakoda had three straight aces to make it 24-13 before Maxine Matheson-Lieber finished off a 25-14 set win with a kill.

The Athenas led 3-0 early in the third set after a McGovern ace, and kept the Panthers at an arm's length the rest of the way. Chapman did get as close as 12-10 at one point, but McGovern answered with a kill, Holmes and Beder had consecutive kills to make it 21-15. Beder combined on a block with Brenna Bell to make it 23-16, then had a kill for a 24-17 lead, and Matheson-Lieber had her second set-ending kill to end the match.

Holmes led CMS with 10 kills, with Beder close behind with nine and Sakoda adding seven, to go along with 13 digs and four service aces. McGovern finished with 36 assists quarterbacking the offense as the Athenas hit .389 as a team, and Dede Carranza added a team-high 16 digs. 

CMS will host Occidental tomorrow for Senior Day at 4 p.m., when it will honor the Class of 2024. The Athenas will then host a SCIAC Semifinal match on Thursday night at 7 p.m., and would have the right to host the SCIAC Finals on Saturday, Nov. 11 with a win.