POMONA – The 22nd-ranked Cal Poly Pomona volleyball team got off to a fast start, and then finished even stronger in a five-set, back-and-forth victory over visiting Cal State LA on Saturday night at Kellogg Arena. The Broncos won the match, 25-11, 15-25, 26-24, 22-25, 15-9 to avenge an earlier loss to the Golden Eagles.
Cal Poly Pomona completed a weekend sweep of its two home matches and improved to 18-3 overall and 11-3 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. Cal State LA fell to 14-7 overall and 9-4 in the CCAA.
Four weeks removed from their first loss of the season against the Golden Eagles on Oct. 1 in Los Angeles, the Broncos raced out to a commanding win in the opening set on Saturday. Cal Poly Pomona broke the only tie of the set – a 1-1 deadlock – with four straight tallies as part of a 9-2 scoring run for a 10-3 margin and used their high-powered offense to cruise to the first-set win. Five different Bronco players had kills in the opening frame, in which Cal Poly Pomona hit .462 and totaled 14 kills, while Cal State LA committed as many errors – nine – as it had kills.
The Golden Eagles turned the tables on Cal Poly Pomona in the second set, though, hitting .417 and holding the Broncos to a match-low .147 efficiency, in posting a 10-point victory.
The back-and-forth affair was extremely close in the third and fourth sets, with Cal Poly Pomona fending off a set point at 24-23 in the third with three straight tallies. Sophomores
Daisy Duke and
Jazmyn Wheeler did the bulk of the offensive damage in the set-closing run, with Duke collecting the set-tying and set-winning kills.
The fourth set saw six ties, but just one lead change, and the lead change was at 20-19 when Cal State LA jumped in front for the first time. The teams traded the next five points before the Golden Eagles went ahead 23-21, and they then closed the frame on a 5-2 run to force the decisive fifth set.
Cal Poly Pomona capped the match with an even more efficient attack than it had started with. The Broncos jumped out to an early lead in a closely contested affair before scoring the final four points of the match after owning just a two-point lead at 11-9. Parrish collected her final kill to make it 12-9, then two CPP blocks in a three-point stretch – both of which included sophomore
Kaitlan Tucker – enabled Cal Poly Pomona to complete the 15-9 fifth-set victory. The Broncos committed just one hitting error in the final frame, finishing with nine kills in 14 attempts (.571).
In a match that featured two of the most efficient offensive teams in the NCAA Division II, Cal Poly Pomona hit at a .329 clip while Cal State LA finished at .268. The host Broncos totaled 63 kills from six players, led by a team-high 19 kills from Duke and 16 more from Wheeler. That duo hit .359 and .378, respectively, and Tucker finished with eight kills and a .412 percentage. Senior
Ruki Kennedy had seven kills while hitting .500, and sophomore
Jazminn Parrish had 10 kills. Wheeler (16 digs) and senior setter
Kira Zimmerman (50 assists, 13 digs) posted double-doubles for the Broncos, and senior
Brynn Sherbert led all Cal Poly Pomona players with 18 digs.
Cal State LA, which ended the match with an edge in kills (71-63) and digs (62-59), was led by a 26-kill, 15-dig performance from Karla Santos. Alejandra Negron finished with 16 kills and 10 digs, and Emily Elliott chipped in 16 kills for the Golden Eagles.
Cal Poly Pomona returns to the road for its final away matches of the regular season next weekend. The Broncos visit Cal State East Bay on Thursday afternoon (Nov. 4) at 3 p.m. before taking on Cal State San Marcos on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 6) at 1 p.m. The next home match inside Kellogg Arena is Nov. 11 against Stanislaus State.
