GRANVILLE, Ohio (September 23, 2023) – The first North Coast Athletic Conference match of the 2023 season for the Denison University volleyball team saw the Big Red fall 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-17) at home against DePauw University on Saturday afternoon.

Denison (5-8 overall, 0-1 NCAC) trailed 5-0 to start the match and found itself behind by scores of 17-12 and 21-17 in the opening set before cutting its deficit to one (21-20) on a kill by Corinne Boyd and back-to-back kills by Kelly McCaskey.

Another kill by McCaskey made it a 22-21 deficit before DePauw (6-6, 1-0) won the next three points on a kill, a Denison attack error and a bad set by the Big Red to take the 1-0 lead.

After leading 3-2, Denison fell behind 6-3 in the second set and never got closer than within two in the rest of the frame, trailing by scores of 8-4, 10-5, 14-9, 16-10 and 19-11.

Denison got to within 20-15 following a 4-1 run and then saw its run grow to 7-2 to get the Big Red to within three at 21-18 after back-to-back services aces by Alice Kempf, but then the Tigers won four of the final six points to go up two sets to zero.

The third and final set saw an early 7-1 lead for DePauw before Denison got to within 10-8 on a kill by Claire Hamilton and another ace by Kempf.

The Big Red got to within two at 13-11, 14-12 and 16-14, and were within three at 19-16 following another kill by Hamilton, but a 6-1 run for DePauw featuring three Big Red attack errors and two aces stopped Denison's attempt to stay alive in its tracks.

Hamilton finished with 11 kills and a .333 attack percentage while Boyd had eight kills on .500 percent hitting. Kempf added 29 assists, nine digs and three aces while Sadie Habeeb recorded 11 digs.

Next up, Denison will host Capital University for some nonconference action at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, September 27, before heading right back into conference play at Hiram College (1 p.m.) on Saturday, September 30.