The University of Redlands women's volleyball team came out fired up Saturday afternoon and stunned Chapman University – who is undefeated in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) action – with a 25-23 set victory to open the match. The Panthers bounced back, however, and took the next three sets to win the match 3-1 (23-25, 25-19, 25-13, 25-7).
Senior middle blocker Sammi Tafoya (Granite Bay, CA) led the attack for the Bulldogs, finishing with 10 kills on the day. She was very efficient in the first set, laying down five kills with no errors to finish the set with a 0.714 attack percentage.
Senior setter Emily Marty (San Diego, CA) fueled the offense with 19 assists, while sophomore outside hitter Paige Davidson (Spanaway, WA) was a weapon at the service line with six aces. Defensively, junior libero Ally Busch (Long Beach, CA) finished with a match-high 25 digs.
Chapman may have jumped out to a 14-9 lead in the first, but Redlands quickly found its rhythm and tied the score at 14-14. Senior right-side hitter Maloree Kupp sparked the run with a kill off a Marty assist and an ace from Davidson forced the Panthers to call a timeout.
The Bulldogs kept pushing, though, and extended their lead to 22-19, before Chapman called another timeout. The Panthers managed to even the score at 23-23, but Redlands called a break of its own and finished the set with back-to-back kills from Tafoya to take it 25-23.
Redlands carried that momentum into the second set, opening on a 6-0 run. Davidson had three aces in that span before the Panthers could regroup.
Chapman battled back and ended up taking the set 25-19 and carried that momentum into the last two sets for the match victory.
Redlands (2-12, 0-5 SCIAC) heads to Caltech Tuesday, Oct. 1, for a 7 p.m. matchup, before returning home to host Pomona-Pitzer on Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. in Currier Gym.
