GRANVILLE, Ohio (October 7, 2023) – The Denison University volleyball team swept the College of Wooster 3-0 (25-20, 25-12, 25-21) on Saturday during its Senior Day inside Livingston Gymnasium.

On a night that began with honoring the careers of seniors Corinne Boyd, Emma Goss and Sophia Sobota, the Big Red started the match with back-to-back kills by Sobota and jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first set.

All of the seniors got involved in a successful first set as Denison led 11-6 on a kill by Goss, 16-0 after back-to-back kills by Sobota and an ace by Alice Kempf, and 19-11 after back-to-back kills by Boyd and a Wooster attack error.

The kills continued as a trio of kills by freshman Claire Hamilton made it a 22-17 Big Red lead before a kill by Sobota made it 23-18. The final two points of the opening set for Denison then came thanks to kills by Boyd.

Sobota and Hamilton both recorded five kills in the first set alone while Boyd had four.

Denison finished with 16 kills in the opening set and hit .211 percent, and then had 12 kills and just one error for a .423 hitting percentage in the second set.

Neither team led by more than three points in the third set until the very end when with a 22-21 lead, Denison got a kill by Sobota followed by a Wooster attack error to bring up match-point, and then Sobota finished it off with her 11th kill of the match to end it.

In addition to hitting .233 percent (11 kills; 4 errors) in the final set, the Big Red added five service aces.

Sobota recorded her 11 kills while hitting a career-best .647 percent while Hamilton matched her with 11 kills as well.

Sobota has now recorded double-digit kills in three straight matches while Hamilton has done so in each of her last five matches.

Boyd was next with seven kills while Cailey Johns had six and Goss had three; and Katelyn Chiu finished with 34 assists and a match-high four service aces while Ayla Dunbar led the way in digs with nine.

Denison improves to .500 on the season at 8-8 overall while notching its second conference win (2-1) of the year. Wooster, meanwhile, falls to 6-9 and 0-3.
 

Senior Day Recap:

In 64 career matches, Corinne Boyd has totaled 353 kills and 149 blocks, including career-highs of 157 kills and 73 blocks in 2021. As a senior, Boyd has started in all 16 matches and has recorded 126 kills to go along with a hitting percentage of .290 percent and 40 blocks. She has recorded six blocks in a single match four times in her career, and has reached double-digit kills five times this season, including a career-high 16 kills in a 3-2 win over Birmingham-Southern on September 16. A 2022-23 Denison Chi Alpha Sigma Inductee, Boyd was named to the NCAC Academic Honor Roll in both 2021-22 and 2022-23.

In 10 career matches, Emma Goss has tallied 33 kills, 12 digs and eight blocks. In Denison's previous match, a 3-2 win at Hiram College, Goss contributed with a new career-high eight kills and a career-high seven digs and hit .333 percent. She had a then career-best five kills in back-to-back matches against Albion and Carnegie Mellon last season.

In 50 career matches, Sophia Sobota has totaled 456 career kills, 108 digs and 38 blocks. In 2021, Sobota appeared in all 26 matches and made 22 starts, was tied for second on the team with a career-high 287 kills and was second at 3.22 kills per set, and added career-bests with 52 digs and 25 blocks. That season, Sophia posted a career-best 22 kills during Denison's 3-2 win over Wittenberg in the NCAC Regular-Season Championship match. So far this season, Sophia is fourth on the team with 95 kills and is second at 2.50 kills per set. Sobota was a member of the NCAC Academic Honor Roll and a Denison Top-50 Scholar-Athlete in each of the last two years.
 

Next week will see the Big Red head to Rochester, New York, for the RIT Invitational. Denison will open the tournament against Stevens Institute of Technology at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, October 13.