Denison suffered a 3-1 (30-28, 17-25, 25-21, 25-18) setback to fifth-seeded Wooster in the opening round of the 2012 North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament on Friday afternoon in Springfield, Ohio.

The opening set was a battle of attrition between the two NCAC rivals.  Neither team led by more than two points throughout the entire first set.  Trailing 23-21, sophomore setter Jessica Borsani found first-year Elena Lein and sophomore Elsa Manning on consecutive plays to tie the match at 23-all.  The back-to-back points forced Wooster to call a timeout.

Out of the stoppage, Borsani found Manning once again for another finisher, forcing the Scots to burn their final timeout.  Wooster answered with back-to-back points to regain the lead before Annemarie Fischer tied the match with a kill.  Tied at 27-27, rookie Kenzie Kuhn hammered a kill to give DU a one-point edge.  However, Wooster answered with three-straight points to take the opening set.

Denison scored eight of the first nine points to take an early lead in the second set.  The Fighting Scots battled back to trim the deficit to four on two occasions, but the Big Red attack found its rhythm en route to claiming an eight-point decision.

In the third set, DU found itself in a 20-11 whole midway through the set.  The Big Red battled back thanks to a kill by Lein and three Wooster miscues to make it a five-point game.  Down 21-15, Denison rattled off six of the next seven points to shrink the deficit to one.  The DU run was fueled by a pair of kills from Brittany Perry and finishers by Manning and Kuhn.  Despite the late match run, a kill by Erica Skillman and a two Big Red mistakes secured the Wooster win.

The Big Red and Fighting Scots battled to a 12-12 tied into the middle portion of the fourth set.  After trading off the next four points, Wooster opened up a three-point lead.  DU shrunk the margin to 18-17 before a six-point run put the Scots one-point away from victory.  Lein kept Denison's hopes alive with a thunderous kill, but Wooster's Paige Piper ended the quarterfinal match with a finisher of her own.

Lein ended the day with a game-high 19 kills and five blocks, while Perry and Kuhn each posted 10 finishers.  Borsani handed out a game-best 49 assists.  Defensively, sophomore libero Emily Marguerite recorded 25 digs, while junior Sarah Blum and Borsani notched 16 and 11 digs, respectively.

The Big Red falls to 19-10 on the year, while Wooster improves to 18-12.  Denison returns to Springfield on Saturday to take on eighth-seeded Oberlin at 10 a.m.