Volleyball Loses Three Straight, Narrowly Falls to CMS, Whitter
By Drew Peraut
Sports Associate

The women’s volleyball team had a very discouraging series of games this week. The Lady Hens played C-M-S on Friday, followed by the Alliant International tournament on Saturday and another game against Whittier on Tuesday. Hopes were high and the P-P team put up three good fights but the team lost each of the games.

The Rains gym was packed on Friday night as spectators from each of the five colleges crowded onto the bleachers to watch P-P play C-M-S. The score during the first game remained exceptionally close, with neither team developing a commanding lead. At the close, C-M-S managed to pull ahead, leaving the Sagehens with a 28-30 loss.

The second game went the same way for the Hens. They maintained a close pursuit of their rivals and played with skill but were unable to catch up. A typical play came near the end of the game: C-M-S hit a spike that looked all but unrecoverable, but Katherine Hopkins ’06 leapt forward and managed to reach the ball just in time, landing hard on the wooden floor. Heartbreakingly, despite Hopkins’s fantastic effort, the Athenas did manage to return the ball and win the point. Many of the points on Friday were contested with equal vigor. C-M-S also won that 24-30. #10 dive

The Hens rallied for the third set, pulling away from C-M-S and maintaining their lead. On one particularly impressive play, Jeannie Kenmotsu ’05 managed to salvage a spike from the Athenas and set up Renee Faulkner ’04. Faulkner used the assist to find a hole in the C-M-S defense and drive the ball through with a flawless spike. P-P won this third game by the narrow margin of 30-28.

By the fourth game the Hens were beginning to tire and lost a number of points early on. Near the midway point P-P closed the gap to 13-15, thanks in large part to the excellent play of Elizabeth Shatzer ’05. Shatzer made several good recoveries and sent them crashing back to C-M-S. Unfortunately, the Athena offense was very strong that night and managed to spike the ball into an unoccupied hole in the back row several times. P-P attacked with a renewed burst of energy during the closing minutes of the round, but their effort fell just short. The Hen lost the game 29-31, ending the match.

After their narrow defeats on Friday night, the volleyball team regrouped to play Alliant International University on Saturday. There, the Hens again played a difficult series of games. They lost three games by fairly small margins, ending the match.

The P-P team’s final game was Tuesday night against Whittier College. Unfortunately, they repeated the pattern of the Alliant International game, losing the match after three games. The scores were 26-30, 27-30, 25-30. As with the C-M-S games, each of these was very close and looked like it could have gone either way.

Though the Hens had a number of excellent plays, it was a depressing week. With a record of 4-9 so far for the season, P-P needs to regroup, but has an excellent chance of doing so. They have 13 more matches this season prior to the playoffs.

The Sagehens will next play La Verne at home at 7:30pm on October 4th. Also this week, they will play at Occidental the 5th and at home against Redlands on the 8th.