by David Sutton
Staff Writer
The University of La Verne’s women’s volleyball team took on the NCAA Division III West Region’s fourth-ranked team Tuesday, Chapman University, and lost in three games, 16-14, 16-14 and 15-4.
The Leos came out strong and scored two quick points to take a 2-0 lead. The Panther’s scored a point to pull within 2-1, but La Verne took a 3-1 lead when the Panthers could not handle the serve of junior Margaret Pulver.
Chapman appeared to be out of sync early on and found itself down 4-1.
The two teams played back and forth. The Panthers scored two quick points to get within 4-3, but junior Michelle Pulver sent a blazing serve over the net to give La Verne a 5-3 lead.
Chapman tied the score at 5-5 and played even with La Verne all of the game. Senior Talin Baharian and freshmen Michelle Runyan blocked a Panther shot back into the face of a hitter to tie the game at 14-14.
Chapman went on to win the match 14-16 on a questionable out call.
“We are getting as much as we can from these girls,” said Head Coach Jim Paschal.
Indeed he was.
The women never quit in the second game. They came out strong and gave the Panthers all they could handle.
La Verne took a 4-1 lead with blocks coming from sophomore Denise Rice and Baharian. Chapman scored four points in a row to take the lead 4-5, but Michelle Pulver would tie the score 5-5 with a blistering serve that Chapman could not handle.
With a 14-15 score, the two teams went on a long rally. La Verne was returning everything that Chapman threw at them, unfortunately the Panthers dropped a shot in and won the game.
“Serving mistakes kept us from winning. We could have won both games,” said Paschal.
The third game was not as close as the previous two. With the score 3-3, the Panthers went on a run and never let La Verne get closer then 3-4. Chapman scored 11 unanswered points, winning 15-4. The final point came off a net violation.
David Sutton
