by Brice Nixon
Sports Editor
After Friday’s loss to first-place Cal Lutheran, La Verne’s women’s volleyball team, led by junior outside hitter Amy Brummel and senior middle blocker Allison Moore, bounced back to win two Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) matches and stay in second place.
The Leopards traveled to Cal Lu (11-8, 4-0 SCIAC) Oct. 8, with a chance to keep pace with the Regals but lost in four games 15-4, 15-9, 11-15 and 15-5.
Brummel led La Verne with 20 kills and contributed 12 digs, but also had a team-high five receiving errors. Freshman middle blocker Stacey Lupu had 12 kills and a match-high 16 digs, and Moore added 12 kills.
“It looked like we expected balls to come to us,” said assistant coach Randi Winn, “And when they didn’t, we didn’t make the adjustment.
“Cal Lu played very well. And we played great at times, but we could never sustain a level. We were like a roller coaster, up and down. We couldn’t keep one level the whole time.”
The Leopards had only a .195 attack percentage in the match and seven ball-handling errors.
The next day La Verne (9-5, 4-1) played at last-place Redlands and kept the Bulldogs winless in SCIAC competition.
With each team having won a game, the Leopards came out on top, 15-13, in a closely contested third game that propelled them to victory in the match.
La Verne trailed 13-11 when head coach Don Flora called a timeout. The Leopards came out and got the sideout needed, then proceeded to reel off four straight points, including two aces by freshman setter Meridith Zembal, who also contributed 15 digs.
In the fourth game, ULV never trailed after grabbing a 4-3 lead, with two kills and an ace from Brummel. A kill by freshman outside hitter Sue Whitcher ended the match and gave La Verne a 15-10 win in the game.
Whitcher entered for junior outside hitter Inger Johnson in the third game and helped the La Verne come back from a two-point deficit.
“She had a very positive impact,” said Winn. “She passed really well and she came in and made some good plays, but she was just more disciplined.
“She played her area and she did her job, and then the other girls could do their job. She came in and did a great job of being disciplined, and swinging, and blocking.”
Whitcher had five kills in two games, with only one attack error. Brummel again led the attack, recording 17 kills to go along with a team-high 17 digs.
Sophomore outside hitter Pamela Hunnicutt had 11 kills and Zembal and Johnson contributed defensively with 15 and 14 digs, respectively.
But the Leopards were plagued by the same problems they had against Cal Lu.
Hunnicutt had 12 attack errors and Lupu had eight to go with her nine kills.
“I can’t say if we came in thinking they were not a high-caliber team,” said Winn. “I think we just were really undisciplined on our defense, on our serve receives, and it kind of piled up.
“Our passing just killed us tonight … on serve receives and on transition, and on free balls. We just weren’t disciplined.”
The Leopards trailed 5-4 in the first game when they broke open the game with six straight points, including an ace by Zembal, to take a 10-5 lead.
Redlands fought back to tie the score 10-10, but La Verne countered with a kill and a block from both Brummel and Lupu to win 15-11.
Redlands jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the second game before the Leopards recorded a point. However, La Verne, led by a kill and an ace by Brummel, came back to within two, at 9-7. But they could not get any closer and lost 15-8.
“We didn’t play to our potential,” said Moore, who had eight kills. “We went in there thinking that we were going to beat them very easily, and I think we kind of got cocky in that game. We just got a little ahead of ourselves.”
The Leopards then played at Whittier Tuesday night and expected a tough game from a Whittier team that had taken Cal Lu to five games a week earlier.
But other than the second game, which La Verne won 16-14, the Poets did not give much of a challenge to the Leopards. ULV swept in three games, 15-2, 16-14, 15-5.
“It was easier than I expected it to be,” said Moore, “because we just played Cal Lutheran last Friday and we lost to them in four games and they pretty much beat us really bad. And they [Whittier] went to five games with them.”
ULV dominated the first game but was tested in the second. They edged past the Poets and, in the third game, regained the form that Flora felt was missing against Cal Lu and Redlands.
“I was looking for a little momentum,” said Flora, “looking to get back into a little bit of a rhythm.”
Leading 7-4, the Leopards took a commanding 12-4 lead with five-straight points. An ace by Moore, who also had 10 kills, and a kill by Whitcher, who had 12, ended the match.
ULV hosts Occidental College tonight at 7:30 in the Supertents before playing Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
