ATLANTA, Ga. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's volleyball team had a pair of tight battles with No. 8 Colby and No. 4 East Texas Baptist at the East West Classic hosted by Emory, but the Athenas fell in four sets to both opponents on Saturday.
With the losses, CMS now stands at 3-3 on the season, with all three losses to nationally ranked teams this weekend in four sets. Colby improved to 2-0 with the win, while East Texas Baptist moves to 3-3.
Set scores against East Texas Baptist were 25-23, 25-22, 19-25, 25-23 in favor of the Tigers, while Colby was able to pull out its match 25-23, 16-25, 25-18, 25-19. Despite the tough weekend, CMS was competitive in every match, with five of its nine set losses coming by two points.
Shae Delany had 12 kills and 14 digs in the Colby match, while
Solvej Eversoll and
Stella Gajar had six blocks apiece.
Phoebe Shorney hed CMS with 11 kills against ETBU, while Eversoll had seven blocks, and
Elise Arends had 21 digs.
In the Colby match, the first set was tied 23-23 after a Delany kill before the White Mules earned the final two points to take a 1-0 lead. CMS roared out to a 14-4 lead in the second set on a Shorney kill, and then after Colby pulled within 20-16, the Athenas closed out on a 5-0 run, ending with an
Ashlee Sento kill.
The White Mules, though, closed out the third set on an 8-0 run after CMS went ahead 18-17 to take a 2-1 lead, and then finished off the match on a 4-0 run after the Athenas had closed to within 21-19 in the fourth.
Against ETBU, the Tigers used a 4-0 run in the first set to go ahead 22-20. CMS battled to within 24-23 on a Gajar kill, but Lara Hornsby had a kill to finish off the set. The second set was tied 21-21, but ETBU had a 4-1 run to close it out after two straight kills from McKinzie Riley.
CMS fought back in the third, going ahead 19-9 after a 6-0 run that featured an ace from
Samantha Riter and two blocks from Eversoll and
Ari Clarkson, before closing it out 25-19 after a Shorney kill and a Tiger error. CMS then had a 5-0 run in the fourth set to go ahead 23-22 in a run that featured two kills from Clarkson and Delany, but Allison Sims answered with three kills in a row to finish it off for ETBU.
CMS will be back in action next weekend at the Cal Lutheran Invitational.
