SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (November 7, 2023) – Sixth-seeded Denison University volleyball suffered a 3-0 (25-17, 25-18, 25-19) loss at third-seeded Wittenberg University on Tuesday night in the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinals. The loss eliminates the Big Red from the conference tournament.

Leading the Big Red in kills was Reagan Sass with five while Sadie Habeeb added 19 digs and three service aces and Ryan Kotalik had 10 digs. With her first kill of the match, senior Sophia Sobota recorded her 500th career kill.

In addition, Sass and Corinne Boyd both finished with three blocks.

Wittenberg (14-13 overall), which had won six matches in a row to get back to .500 entering the postseason, played confidently from the start as a kill by Tyler Linkhart got the match started before a service ace by Mack Ricketts made it a 5-0 lead for the Tigers in the opening set.

A sneaky kill by Ricketts on a fake set made it a 13-6 Tigers' lead, and then back-to-back Big Red attack errors made it 15-6.

Ricketts continued to feast as she delivered an ace to make it 17-8, but then Denison began to creep back into it with a 6-0 run starting with five straight points by Sass and Cailey Johns and ending with an ace by Kempf to make it just a three-point margin (17-14).

However, after a service error, Wittenberg responded with an assisted block involving Linkhart, and then a big kill by Linkhart made it 20-14.

After back-to-back kills by Claire Hamilton and Sass got Denison to within 20-16, another assisted block involving Linkart was followed by the third ace of the set for the Tigers, and then two points later, the fourth kill by Linkart made it 23-17 to effectively put the first set out of reach for the Big Red.

Denison hit -.114 percent with nine attack errors in the first set, but came out more aggressive in the second set with a 6-3 lead on two attack errors, two bad sets and one service error by Wittenberg.

Unfortunately, it's hard to keep a good team down as the Tigers got five straight points to take an 8-6 lead.

Three times in the middle part of the second set, the Big Red got to within one point of the Tigers with the final time coming at 16-15, but Linkhart made her presence felt again with a kill followed by an ace two points later to give Wittenberg some breathing room (19-15) as the set reached its latter stages.

After a timeout by Denison to try and devise a strategy to close the gap, Ricketts struck a big blow with another kill on a fake set to make it 20-15, and then one more kill by the Tigers capped their second 5-0 run of the set to make it 21-15.

Set number three followed a similar starting script to the second set as Denison held an early lead, this time at 5-3 after an ace by Habeeb, but again, another run for the Tigers reversed the advantage and put them up by two (7-5).

Another 5-0 run for Wittenberg came after a kill by Sass got Denison back to within two at 11-9, but the run for the Tigers featured two kills and two assisted blocks and ended with an ace to make it 16-9.

Denison tired to fight as a kill by Sass was followed by back-to-back kills from Sobota and then a Tigers' attack error to make it just a three-point deficit (16-13), but yet again, Wittenberg had all of the answers in this one and three straight points on a kill, an assisted block and an ace put the Big Red right back into a big hole down 19-13.

That brought up a Denison timeout, but it did not stop the bleeding as Linkart added two more kills on the next three points as the Tigers made it a 6-0 run in all to put the match away up 22-13.

Wittenberg hit a dominant .353 percent with just two attack errors in the final set, and also added four aces and three blocks to help finish things off.

Denison finished the 2023 season with an overall record of 10-18 while going 3-4 in conference play.