LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. (Oct. 30, 2023) – Freshman
Brenna Kusleika (Upland, Calif. / Claremont) of the Whittier College women's volleyball team has been named SCIAC Athlete of the Week for her three-match performance this week, but perhaps more specifically for her
spectacular outing against No. 4 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges this weekend.
Behind Kusleika's 11 kills, the Poets managed to sweep the Athenas on their home floor at the Graham Athletic Center, becoming just the second team to sweep CMS in the last six years. Whittier's ability to start fast against CMS proved to be a huge factor in the win, and no player embodied this more than Kusleika, who, at one point, had seven kills without committing a single error. She finished the match with a .444 hitting percentage, fueled by her efficiency. After all, she took just 19 attempts over the three sets, cementing Saturday as the best performance of her Whittier career to date.
However, SCIAC Athlete of the Week is a weekly award, and the
younger Kusleika sister managed to put in an impressive body of work in the Poets' other two victories this week over Chapman University and Occidental College. Considering she never exceeded 18 attempts in any one of the three games, she went on to hit a superb .306 over the week that put her in a league of her own among the conference's top contributors. She had five kills at Oxy on Friday night in a match where the Poets collectively hit .289, and nine kills at Chapman in a match where the Poets successfully bounced the Panthers out of the SCIAC Postseason Tournament picture. She also made contributions at the net, totaling four blocks (six assisted, one solo).
Kusleika and the Poets will have a chance to clinch their first SCIAC Postseason Tournament berth in eight years when they travel to the University of Redlands on Tuesday night for a 7 p.m. tilt.
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