GRANVILLE, Ohio (September 12, 2023) – In a matchup between two 3-4 teams, it was the Denison University volleyball team that got back into the win column and snapped its four-match losing streak with a 3-1 (27-25, 23-25, 25-17, 25-14) win at home against Earlham College on Tuesday night inside Livingston Gym.

Denison trailed by scores of 6-1 and 9-2 to start the match, and then a 6-1 run for Earlham ending with back-to-back service aces by Meg Kobman made it 15-7.

The Big Red cut their deficit to 20-17 on a kill by Claire Hamilton followed by back-to-back kills by Cailey Johns, but a service error followed by kill by the Quakers made it a five-point margin.

Denison, however, would not go down easily and rattled off six straight points featuring three Earlham attack errors and ending with an ace by Ayla Dunbar to tie it at 24-24.

Then down 25-24, Denison won the final three points of the set on another Earlham attack error, a bad set by the Quakers and then a kill by Kelly McCaskey.

The Big Red outhit Earlham .235 percent (12 kills, 4 errors) to .081 percent (12 kills, 9 errors) in the first set and won despite watching the Quakers finish with four service aces and four blocks.

The second set was close all the way with neither team leading by more than three points throughout.

Tied at 18-18 in set number two, Denison got back-to-back kills by Sophia Sobota and Johns to go up by two. However, a 4-0 run for Earlham ending with an ace between two Big Red defenders flipped the script in favor of the Quakers.

Denison cut it to one (24-23) on a kill by Corinne Boyd, but in the end it would not be enough to hold off a kill by Earlham's Lily Virgili to tie it at one set apiece.

Fortunately, Denison was able to respond with big runs in both the third and the fourth sets with Ryan Kotalik serving during both to take the win.

In the third set, Denison jumped out to an 11-5 lead on an assisted block by Hamilton and Alice Kempf.

Then with Kotalik serving, Denison proceeded to go on a big 7-0 run that started with a kill by Maeve Perry and ended with three straight errors by Earlham to make it a 10-point margin (21-11) in favor of the Big Red.

A kill by Boyd made it 23-12, a kill by Johns made it 24-15, and then a block by Kempf and Johns gave Denison the 2-1 lead.

In the final set, Denison led 15-11 before running away with it up 23-12 after an 8-0 run featuring at one point, four straight aces by Kotalik. It was then Kotalik who finished off the match with a kill.

Kotalik totaled nine aces and seven digs on the match while Kempf recorded 36 assists and 13 digs and Sadie Habeeb led the team with 14 digs.

Boyd finished with nine kills, a .375 attack percentage and three blocks while McCaskey matched Boyd with 10 kills and Hamilton added nine.

Next up, Denison will head back into tournament action at the Colonel Invitational. The Big Red will start off against the tournament hosts from Centre College at 8 p.m. on Friday, September 15.