Claremont, Calif. (September 8, 2015)—Pitzer College first-year student and Women’s Volleyball outside hitter Julia Zwaal ’19 was named the fall season’s first recipient of the SCIAC Female Athlete of the Week Award for all sports.
Zwaal earned the honor after helping the Sagehens start off the season with a 4-0 record with four wins at the Pacific Coast Classic. She had at least 20 kills—legal, point-scoring plays—in all four matches, the first four matches of her college career, finishing the weekend with 87 kills overall (5.44 per set). She was named to the All-Tournament Team at the Pacific Coast Classic, joining teammate Michelle Schultz PO ’16.
“Julia had a phenomenal weekend,” said Head Coach Valerie Townsend. “We had a lot of holes to fill this year with the graduation of last year’s senior class, and she stepped up and performed as well as we could have possibly hoped in her first tournament.”
In the season-opener against St. Mary’s College (Md.), Zwaal had a pivotal kill in the second set, tied 24-24 and with the Sagehens trailing 1-0, and also put Pomona-Pitzer ahead to stay in the fifth set with a kill will the score tied 11-11. Against NYU, and the Sagehens again down 1-0, she had back-to-back kills with the score 23-21 to finish off the second set and jump start Pomona-Pitzer to a 3-1 win.
In the final match of the weekend against George Fox, with the Sagehens again behind 1-0, Zwaal had kills for the final five Pomona-Pitzer points in the second set. She then finished off the third set with a kill with the score 24-23 to give the Sagehens a 2-1 lead, and they would go on to take the 3-1 win. The Sagehens and Carthage were the only two women’s volleyball teams to survive the weekend unbeaten.
Zwaal and the Sagehens are back in action on Sept. 15, when they open SCIAC play with a road match at Redlands.
