WHITTIER, Calif. (Oct. 8, 2023) – The Whittier College women's volleyball team took care of business against Occidental College on Friday night, spurred on by a crowd of nearly 300 people in the Graham Athletic Center. The attendance figure made Friday night the highest attended intercollegiate game in the building in more than three years.
While the pro-Poet crowd came out in full force, it was up to the Poets to deliver on the court and win their fourth-consecutive SCIAC game. The Poets handled business as expected, blanking the Tigers 3-0 thanks to a level of offensive efficiency in the first two sets seldom seen this year. The Poets had an errorless second set, registering 13 team kills en route to a .464 team hitting percentage during this segment of the match. Junior outside hitter
Riley DeGroot (Ontario, Calif. / Mt. San Antonio College) led the Poets with 12 kills while making a slew of dazzling plays in the air to wow the Poet faithful. However, the efficient hitting from the home team's top pieces at the net went on to truly steal the show.
Senior middle blocker
Xenia Villagomez (Corona, Calif. / Santiago) had seven kills to just one error for a .545 hitting percentage. Villagomez has consistently been the Poets' most efficient attacking player, and Friday's performance was absolutely no exception. However, freshmen
Brenna Kusleika (Upland, Calif. / Claremont) and
Mia D'Amato (Bakersfield, Calif. / Garces) also contributed with eight kills, and both players finished the match with hitting percentages above .250 overall. Thanks to this, the Poets were able to blow the Tigers off the court between the first two sets of the match, picking up 25-17 and 25-13 wins to take a 2-0 lead.
Whittier's early dominance paved the way for other players to work into the Poets' rotation of contributors. Defensive specialists
Briana Rodriguez (La Puente, Calif. / Bishop Amat) and
Megan Hester (La Verne, Calif. / Bonita) each logged playing time over the final two frames of the match, with Hester even assisting on a pair of Poet kills that helped raise the decibel level in the building. All the while, the Poets did receive a stiffer challenge from the Tigers in the third set, with the visiting team's outside hitters able to better find their spots. However, the Poets have shown themselves to be a team that can play their best volleyball in tense situations, and went on to rattle off back-to-back kills from both DeGroot and D'Amato to outlast the Tigers in a third set that needed to be decided with extra points. Both of the Poets' key setters, senior
Jordan Heard (San Dimas, Calif. / San Dimas) and junior
Morgan Lin (Glendora, Calif. / Glendora), assisted on each of the final points, while junior libero and reigning SCIAC Defensive Athlete of the Week
Nadine Oronoz (Whittier, Calif. / Rio Hondo College) lifted the Poets with a team-high 18 digs.
The four-game winning streak represents the Poets' most impressive run of success since the 2021 season when they also won four-consecutive SCIAC games.
Head Coach
Chris Duarte-McDermott and the Poets will try to extend their recent winning run to five games when they travel to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 4 p.m.
Follow and show support for your Whittier Poets on Twitter (@WCPoets), YouTube and Instagram (@PoetAthletics)!
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