LOS ANGELES – The Caltech volleyball team faced nearby rival Occidental College in a wild five-set match Friday evening.
 
The Beavers opened the match with a very close first set, and after recovering from an early 4-2 deficit managed to hold pace with the home Tigers en route to a 13-13 tie. Shortly thereafter, Oxy strung together a five-point run for a 19-15, but the Beavers recovered and stayed close all the way to a 24-23 lead. Occidental evaded the set point and ultimately claimed the first set by a 26-24 margin.
 
Undeterred, Caltech took control of the second set, racing ahead to an 8-3 lead that drew a timeout by the Oxy coach after a 6-0 scoring run. The hosts battled back and briefly led 14-13, but the Beavers took eight of the next eleven rallies for a 21-17 lead. Occidental's attempts to turn the set around fell short as back-to-back kills by Claire Perhach and Halle Blend evened the match at 1-1 by a set-winning score of 25-21.
 
More effective attacking was pivotal for the turnaround in the second set. Caltech registered 17 kills in each of the first two sets, but made two fewer attacking errors and attempted just 34 total attacks compared to 51 in the first set, improving from .216 to .382 attack efficiency. The Beavers did even better in the third set, hitting for a match-high .417 hit percentage.
 
Kills by Perhach, Blend and Marissa Till earned the Beavers 7-1 run to open the third set, drawing a timeout by the opponents. Helen Brackney, Gabriella Twombly, and Alize Bakker also recorded kills as they pulled their team ahead to a 16-10 lead. Another late Occidental surge wasn't enough and Caltech won the third set 25-19.
 
After trailing for the majority of the fourth set, the Beavers came back from a 17-11 deficit to tie the score at 21-21 by virtue of service aces by Blend and Sophia Parker, and a kill by Perhach brought Caltech within two points of a match victory, but Oxy took the last three points for a 25-23 set win, forcing a decisive fifth set.
 
It all came together for the Tigers when they needed it most. Despite Caltech out-hitting the hosts .348 to .316 with a 12-6 advantage on kills, Occidental made no attack errors in the final frame and threaded four service aces to claw back from three deficits and take the match with a 15-13 set score.
 
Till was the match's top scorer with 21.5 points from 21 kills and a block assist, while Perhach added 19 points with two service aces and block assists, plus a match-high .417 hit percentage from her 16 kills on 36 attacks with just one error.

Giulia Murgia was the match's top playmaker with 35 assists, also getting down for 13 digs and dealing a service ace, and Celine Wu led the team with 21 digs, also serving up two assists and earning a kill from the back row.

Head Coach Tom Gardner and the Beavers will return home to Braun Gymnasium on Tuesday, Oct. 10 to face the Athenas of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps colleges. Find live stats and video at https://gocaltech.com/coverage.