GRANVILLE, Ohio – Mackenzie Bruzzio and Delaney Swanson each posted 16 kills Saturday for the Kenyon College volleyball team. Rival Denison University, however, brought more firepower and outlasted the visiting Ladies (25-18, 19-25, 25-13, 20-25, 15-11) in a five-set North Coast Athletic Conference contest at Livingston Gymnasium.

With the help of Bruzzio and Swanson, Kenyon tallied 49 kills for the match. Across the net, the Big Red swatted 70 kills and were paced by the trio of Emma Woerner, Alex Tubbs and Leah Reinfranck. Those three charted 15, 13 and 12 kills, respectively. Twenty-one of those kills came in the first set and the Bid Red needed six of them to pull away from the Ladies. With Denison holding a 14-13 lead, four different Denison players accounted for those six kills during a 7-0 run that put the set away.

Kenyon flipped the script in the second set. After falling behind 4-0 and 6-3, the Ladies forged ahead to tie things up at 9-9. Sophomore Maleah Miller then took over the match, serving seven straight points while chalking up two aces and a kill in a run that helped the Ladies even score at one set apiece.

The Ladies' momentum was quickly halted in the third set. Nine attack errors led to a negative hitting percentage and made plenty of room for the Big Red to coast to the set victory.

To their credit, the Ladies bounced back in the fourth set and put together a late rally to overcome deficits of 6-3 and 14-9. A 7-1 run that featured two kills from Alexi Donnelly pushed the Ladies in front, 16-15. Denison jumped back ahead by a point, but three straight attack errors, followed by an ace from Ashley Martens, gave the Ladies a 21-17 cushion and eventually propelled them into the deciding fifth set.

In that final set, Kenyon maintained a three-point lead until it was 9-6. At that point, the Big Red parlayed three kills and three Kenyon errors into a 6-0 run. Kenyon clawed back to within two points after a couple of kills from Swanson, but the Big Red closed things out with three straight kills of their own.

Senior Jensen Shurbert assisted on 37 of the Ladies' 49 kills. That gave her 622 assists for the season and 2,725 for her career, a mark that ranks second in Kenyon's career record book.

As a team, the Ladies had eight aces and Martens was responsible for four of them. Miller added two aces and a match-high seven blocks. Swanson added 23 digs to the Ladies' totals, while Donnelly rounded things out with 15 digs, six kills, three blocks and an ace.