GAMBIER, Ohio (October 22, 2011) Playing at home in Tomsich Arena for the final time this season, the Kenyon College volleyball team split a pair of matches Saturday. The Ladies survived the Allegheny College Gators, 3-2, in a conference match, but later fell, 3-1, to the Spartans of Case Western Reserve University.

Against Allegheny, the Ladies were locked in a close match, but held on to pull out a 25-19, 21-25, 25-21, 21-25, 15-11 victory. The win evened up the Ladies' North Coast Athletic Conference record at 7-7 and the loss dropped Allegheny to 4-10 in conference play.

With the teams knotted at two sets apiece, the Ladies finally put the Gators away in the deciding fifth set. On the strength of kills from Sierra DeLeon and Mary Jo Scott, the Kenyon women jumped out to a 4-2 advantage in that last set. Allegheny, however, came back to tie things up at 9-9.

At that point, Kenyon sophomore Ana Maricic took over the match. She came up with a block of her own and followed it with a kill that gave Kenyon an 11-9 lead. The Gators got one point back, but the Ladies closed out the contest on a 4-1 run. Included in that run were kills from Maricic, Scott, and Mary Myers, as well as assisted blocks from Maricic and Myers.

Myers led the team with 14 kills against the Gators. Maricic put down 13 kills and both Scott and DeLeon contributed 11.

Against Case, the Ladies leaned more on DeLeon for their attack. She responded with a match-high 19 kills but it wasn't enough to keep the Ladies from absorbing a 25-17, 22-25, 25-19, 25-10 loss. Scott added another seven kills against the Spartans and three other Ladies threw down six kills apiece.

Kenyon freshman Hannah Shank registered a total of 89 assists in the two matches and now has 814 assists for the season. In addition to her 18 kills, Scott recorded a team-best 34 digs. Senior Crystal Piras had 25 digs and Maricic chalked up 10 blocks on the day.

The Ladies will wrap up their regular season with two road matches. They'll head to Denison University on Friday and then travel to Oberlin College for the finale on Saturday.