SportsVolleyball

Leopards clinch SCIAC

La Verne sophomore Amy Kratochvil (No. 4) punches the ball over the net, challenging blockers senior Shelley Westberg (No. 8) and freshman Stephanie Sczech (No. 13) of Chapman Monday night in the Supertents. The Leopards routed the Panthers with wins in three consecutive games (30-22, 30-25 and 30-19). / photo by Jennifer Contreras
La Verne sophomore Amy Kratochvil (No. 4) punches the ball over the net, challenging blockers senior Shelley Westberg (No. 8) and freshman Stephanie Sczech (No. 13) of Chapman Monday night in the Supertents. The Leopards routed the Panthers with wins in three consecutive games (30-22, 30-25 and 30-19). / photo by Jennifer Contreras

by Matt Paulson
Sports Editor

The University of La Verne women’s volleyball team clinched the 2002 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title last week with wins over Cal Lutheran and Cal Tech last Friday and Tuesday, respectively.

Tuesday night’s match against Cal Tech was hardly a heated battle. The Leopards demolished the Beavers in a three-game match that lasted less than an hour by scores of 30-5, 30-10 and 30-7.

ULV showed superiority in every aspect of the match. The most one-sided was the play at the net.

The Leopards kept Cal Tech to a team hitting percentage of -.029 for the match. Only one Beaver, Colleen Moody, managed to hit for a positive percentage (.118). In total, Cal Tech, as a unit, tallied only eight kills on 70 attempts throughout the match. Compounding this lack of offensive impact were the10 hitting errors collected by the Beavers in the contest.

Throughout the season, the Leopards have shown supreme depth over each of their SCIAC opponents. Tuesday night was another occasion in which this was displayed as all 12 Leopards received ink in the statistics book.

“All 12 people executed on our side of the net,” head coach Don Flora said.

Of the 32 kills in the three games played, 10 players contributed at least one kill to the Leopard total, with nine of those players hitting .250 or better as ULV, as a team, made only three hitting errors throughout the entire match. Flora called this “outstanding.”

“It’s awesome to see everyone on our team make an impact. Every player is a star, no matter what team we play,” senior middle blocker Stacey Lupu said.

The Leopards highlighted having fun as one of the most important parts of the one-sided Cal Tech match.

“We had the most fun we’ve ever had playing against any team,” sophomore Jennifer Stout said.

“Being able to experience having fun playing as a team will help better our play when we face a difficult team,” sophomore Amy Kratochvil said.

The previous night, ULV hosted the Chapman University Panthers in the Supertents for a non-conference match-up.

The Leopards earned scores of 30-22, 30-25 and 30-19 in the three-game victory that elapsed just more than an hour throughout play.

ULV made child’s play of the Panthers at the net, holding Chapman to a hitting percentage of only .056 on just 20 kills. The Leopards more than doubled this kill total with 43 and hitting percentage of .245.

The most outstanding stat, though, as highlighted by Flora, were the Leopards’ 13 team blocks, which is a season-high for ULV.

Flora also declared the team’s total defense as a match highlight.

“Holding [Chapman’s] hitting percentage below .100 is a pretty amazing stat,” he said.

Last Friday, the Leopards faced one of their top conference rivals, the Cal Lutheran Regals.

ULV continues to hold control over this rivalry as the Leopards beat the Regals in a four-game match by scores of 30-22, 30-21, 28-30 and 30-18 in the teams’ second meeting of the year. The last meeting was also dominated by ULV as the Leopards swept the Regals in three games in the October match.

ULV’s only loss in the match came in the third game in which ULV led 27-24 at one point. The Regals turned the game around with a scoring rally.

“They got a good run because we weren’t executing,” Stout said.

Kratochvil attributed this run to ULV’s loss of “mental focus.”

“We need to always mentally be there,” she said.

“We didn’t close out,” Flora said. “It’s a big rival, and it’s their last gasp against their rival. They executed very well.”

The game-three loss to the Regals marks the first time this season that the Leopards have lost a game to any team in SCIAC.

Assistant coach Will Paulson sees this as a positive for the Leopards. When a team turns in a perfect record in its conference, two things appear to be true to the rest of the nation: the team has an exceptionally easy conference, and the team peaked before regional and national competition, he said.

Flora does not see the loss as substantial to the big picture in any way.

“Our goal is to be undefeated in matches; that’s all we were asking. It’s still phenomenal that we’ve only lost one game in 13 matches,” Flora said.

As the Leopards can now boast the conference title for the third year in a row, they become one of the top-48 teams in the nation. With this title, they have also taken the next step toward returning to the National Championship, which is a berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association West Region playoffs.

The tournament, which was hosted by Cal State Hayward last year, will be played at ULV, Hayward or Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash. Ultimately, the tournament host all depends on the bid, which, Flora said, will be on Sunday night.

Matt Paulson, Editor in Chief
Matt Paulson
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