Whitworth follows script to win opener
Whitworth coach Steve Rupe said coming in that his Northwest Conference regular-season champion Pirates didn’t need to be brilliant to advance past Thursday’s first round in the West Regional of the NCAA Division III Volleyball Tournament.
Good, solid play, he explained, would be enough.
That’s exactly what the second-seeded Bucs came up with in a quick, 3-0 sweep of No. 7 Colorado College.
“For the first day in a tournament, I thought we played pretty well – pretty solid, for the most part,” Rupe said after watching senior middle blockers Natalie Danielson and Carey Guhlke combine for 25 kills in the one-sided match.
Danielson, who was named the NWC Player of the Year earlier this week, registered 12 kills, and Guhlke added 11, while hitting a match-best .500.
“We kind of stumbled a little toward the end of that third game,” Rupe admitted, “but the whole goal today was to survive Day One – survive the emotions, survive the mistakes and survive the poor volleyball that comes with nervousness. And I thought we did that very well.”
The 30-20, 30-17, 30-26 victory, witnessed by an appreciative Whitworth Fieldhouse crowd of 650, moved the host Pirates (21-3) into today’s semifinals and a 7 p.m. rematch with NWC rival and sixth-seeded Linfield (20-4), which upset third-seeded Cal Lutheran 3-0 in an earlier first-round match.
Colorado College, which got 12 kills from Anna Clithero, never really challenged the Pirates until the third game when the Tigers (21-9) took advantage of a string of Whitworth errors to cut a 24-17 deficit to 26-25. But Whitworth refused to buckle, and put away the visitors by scoring four of the game’s last five points.
“Our middles are just better than theirs,” Rupe said. “When you control the middle, you control the match, and we did that very well with Natalie and Carey. They were just outstanding.”
Today’s semifinal against Linfield should be interesting, considering the two teams split a pair of matches during NWC play, with both teams winning at home.
“We didn’t play very well at their place,” Rupe said, “but they’re still a very good team. It should be a good match. But, again, if we play well and control the tempo, we should come out on top.”
Today’s first semifinal, which starts at 4:30 p.m., will pit top-seeded La Verne (21-8) against fifth-seeded Cal State East Bay (27-10).
La Verne swept Chapman, the No. 8 seed, 3-0 in another opener, while Cal State East Bay rallied from a first-game loss to turn back fourth-seeded Puget Sound 3-1.
Courtney Rollins, with 11 kills, and Mandy Sedia, with 10, paced a balanced attack for La Verne.
Linfield used the .435 hitting of Lauren Kreiger, which included a team-high 12 kills, to tame Cal Lutheran.
Cal State East Bay’s Alison Spitaleri and Cynthia Raichel combined for 26 kills in the Pioneers’ win over Puget Sound.