GRANVILLE, Ohio (November 1, 2023) – The final home match of the 2023 season for the Denison University volleyball team saw the Big Red come up short against Otterbein University, 3-1 (14-25, 25-21, 25-21 , 25-21) in a regional showdown on Wednesday night inside Livingston Gymnasium.
Denison took advantage of 12 attack errors, three service errors and a bad set by Otterbein to win the first set, but in the next two sets, the Cardinals flipped the script to hit .256 percent (17 kills; 6 errors) in the second set and .273 percent (12 kills; 3 errors) in the third.
In the fourth set, Denison led 16-14 and seemed to have a chance to force a deciding fifth set, but instead, a 5-0 run for the Cardinals ending with three straight kills put Otterbein in front by a score of 19-16 .
From there, a solo block for Corinne Boyd finally stopped the Cardinals’ run, and then later on in the set a kill by Claire Hamilton was followed by an assisted block by Cailey Johns and Reagan Sass to make it a two-point deficit again at 23-21.
However, a big rally at that point ended with an opportunistic kill by the Cardinals to bring up match-point, and then one point later, an attack error by the Big Red ended the night.
Sophia Sobota had a big night for the Big Red with a season-high of 16 kills while Hamilton added 12 kills, Katelyn Chiu had 34 assists and Sadie Habeeb had 21 digs.
In addition, the Big Red tied their season-high with 10 blocks as Boyd and Johns both finished with five blocks while Sass had four.
Otterbein, who was receiving votes in the AVCA/TARAFLEX Division III WVB Poll last week, improves to 21-8 on the season while Denison falls to 10-15.
Before the start of the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament next week, the Big Red will finish off the regular season at the NAC/OAC Crossover hosted at Ohio Northern University on Saturday, November 4. Denison will start off against the host Polar Bears at 12 pm before taking on Heidelberg University at 3 pm
