ROCHESTER, N.Y. (October 13, 2023) – The opening day of the Brick City Invitational, hosted by the Rochester Institute of Technology, saw the Denison University volleyball team fall 3-2 (25-19, 23-25, 25-12, 16-25, 15-10) against Stevens Institute of Technology on Friday evening in New York.

It was the first-ever meeting between Denison (8-9 overall) and Stevens (11-6) as the Ducks committed only one attack error and finished with four aces in the final set to take the victory.

Neither team led by more than one in the fifth set until after a kill by Sophia Sobota made it 6-5 Big Red, Stevens rattled off a 5-0 run ending with back-to-back service aces by Bailey Axelrod to take a 10-6 lead.

Denison got back to within 13-10 on back-to-back kills by Claire Hamilton and Sobota, but a service error followed by a bad set was all she wrote for the Big Red.

It was Cailey Johns who ultimately led Denison in kills on the night with 12 while Hamilton and Sobota both finished with 11. For Hamilton, it was her sixth match in a row with 11 or more kills.

Alice Kempf recorded her first double-double in five matches with 32 assists and a career-high 21 digs while Sadie Habeeb added 15 digs and Emma Goss recorded five blocks.

Tied at 13-13 in the second set, Denison got back-to-back kills by Goss and Sobota and then went ahead by a score of 19-14 following an attack error and a bad set by Stevens.

The Ducks, however, made Denison work for the win as back-to-back kills by Cleo Shannon capped a 5-0 run to tie it at 19-19, and then after a kill by Kempf, a 3-0 run for Stevens gave the Ducks a late two-point lead at 22-20.

Down 23-21, Denison had to dig down deep to pull out the set-victory as a big block by Johns ignited the Big Red. That was followed by an attack error by Shannon, and then a kill by Johns brought up set-point before another error by Shannon tied the match at one set apiece.

Unfortunately, Denison was unable to carry its momentum forward into the next set as the Big Red hit -.171 percent (4 kills; 10 errors). Denison actually led 5-2 early in the third set on a kill by Goss before being held to just seven points the rest of the way.

Then in the fourth set, Denison took over the lead with six straight points featuring two kills by Johns and ending with an ace by Kempf to make it 16-11. Then a 5-0 Big Red run featuring two aces by Hamilton made it 21-13 before back-to-back kills by Corinne Boyd and Sobota made it 24-14 and then another kill by Boyd finished it off to force the fifth set.

Denison will continue action tomorrow on Saturday, October 14, by taking on the tournament hosts from RIT at 12 p.m., directly followed by a tough match against No. 23 nationally-ranked Ithaca College at 2 p.m.