MALIBU, Calif. — The Pepperdine women's volleyball team honored seniors Grace Chillingworth, Birdie Hendrickson and Trinity Stanger with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-11, 25-13) sweep of Santa Clara on Thursday night.
In the Waves' (13-10, 10-3 West Coast Conference) third sweep of conference play, everything was clicking against the Broncos (8-15, 4-10 WCC). As a team, the Waves hit .457, the Pepperdine block tallied eight total blocks and held the Broncos to hitting .129 and the team dealt out 10 service aces to send the seniors out with a win.
Chillingworth led all players with 13 kills — seven of which came in the first set — six digs and three service aces, while freshman Ella Piskorz tallied 13 kills and a team-high five blocks. Hendrickson chipped in six kills and 13 digs, while Stanger finished with eight digs and four service aces — the latter of which was a new career high.
The first set was the closest of the night. Santa Clara took an early 7-4 lead off a 4-1 run, yet the Waves clawed back into the match. Trailing 10-7, Piskorz's second kill of the night kickstarted a 4-0 run that put the Waves back in front. Chillingworth's ace at 11-10 not only gave Pepperdine its first lead of the night, but was also the 100th of the senior's career, but both teams see-sawed in the middle stages of the set. At last, Pepperdine broke through. Leading 16-15, a SCU service error helped the Waves side out, and then Stanger kicked off the first of five Pepperdine points with an ace. By the time the dust settled, Piskorz capped off the run with her fifth kill, the Waves were up 22-15 and the team didn't look back en route to a 25-19 first-set victory.
Pepperdine went up 11-3 in the blink of an eye thanks to three service aces from Chillingworth and Stanger. While Rosemary Archer found Kenadie Patterson, Chillingworth and Piskorz for easy points, Santa Clara's offense struggled with three errors over that run. Pepperdine maintained a sizable lead over the Broncos, and eventually doubled them up 18-9 on Patterson's third kill of the set. The Broncos finally strung together multiple points to make the score 20-11, yet the Waves closed out the set on a 5-0 run capped off by Chloe Pravednikov's fifth kill on set point to win the second set 25-11.
The third set was more of the same for Pepperdine, which hit a match-best .500 from the field while Santa Clara had as many kills (seven) as they did errors (seven). An opening 7-0 run from Pepperdine left no doubt in the outcome of the third set, which saw an extended time from Archer behind the service line before Santa Clara finally got on the board. Stanger's third ace of the night put Pepperdine up 10-4, then the Waves doubled up the Broncos 16-8 off another Patterson kill that capped off a 3-0 Waves run. Stanger's final ace of the night made the score 22-11, Pepperdine, then the Waves capped off Senior Night with a Pravednikov kill, an ace from Brynne McGhie and a block from Riley Simpson and Piskorz to finish off the sweep.
NEXT UP
Pepperdine's penultimate homestand continues with a match against San Francisco on Saturday at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased for all remaining matches here.
FOLLOW
Follow the Waves on Facebook and X, @WavesVolleyball, and follow the team on Instagram, @peppvolley. Get all the most recent schedules, results and more on www.PepperdineWaves.com.
