Cahill gets 500th in sweep of Pomona-Pitzer

ORANGE, Calif. – Head coach Mary Cahill earned her 500th career victory after the Chapman University volleyball team opened up SCIAC play with a sweep of Pomona-Pitzer. The Panthers won 25-17, 26-24, 25-21 to start the SCIAC schedule 1-0.

Cahill – the winningest coach in Chapman volleyball history – is the 32nd active Division III coach to reach the milestone of 500 wins. All of Cahill's wins have come at Chapman over her 32-year coaching career.

After quickly capturing a one set lead, the Panthers jumped out to an early 10-1 lead in the second. Pomona-Pitzer began the set with four consecutive attacking errors to give Chapman the advantage. A few more errors with a couple of Chapman aces mixed in mad it 10-1 early on.

Pomona-Pitzer began chipping away but Chapman countered to make it 18-11 on one of senior Sophie Srivastava's 10 kills. Srivastava ended the night with her fourth triple-double of the season, adding 15 assists and 11 digs.

The Sagehens called timeout and proceeded to roll on a 10-2 run to gain a 21-20 lead. After trading the next two points, a couple of Sagehen errors and a kill from Leighton Gagnon put Chapman back in control at 24-22. The Sagehens forced a Panther error and tied it on a kill from Naomi Chen-Mallouk. Senior Jessi Lumsden put Chapman back on top 25-24 and a hit that went long ended it for a 2-0 Chapman lead in the match.

Lumsden ended the match with 11 kills for Chapman. As a team, the Panthers hit .154 and held Pomona-Pitzer to .057 hitting.

With the match going back and forth in the third set, the Panthers trailed 17-16. Chapman turned to a Srivastava kill for the sideout but junior Cat Helgeson took over from the service line and aced the Sagehens three times in a row to fuel a five-point run. The Panthers rode the advantage to take the set and the sweep.

Chapman heads out to Whittier for a 7 p.m. match on Friday before returning home to take on La Verne at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

By Steven Olveda
Sports Information Director

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