MONTCLAIR, N.J. – Playing from behind for what seemed like the majority of the day, the Kenyon College volleyball team found a way to fight back from a 2-0 deficit to defeat Moravian College, 3-2, and salvage a split in Saturday's tri-match at Montclair State University.
Kenyon started the day with a 3-1 loss to the host Red Hawks, who won the first two sets 25-18 and 25-21. Kenyon took set three, 25-17, but Montclair State finished things off in the fourth set, holding Kenyon off 28-26.
In the second match of the day, Moravian squeaked by Kenyon 28-26 and 25-23 in the first two sets. The Ladies then stormed back to win the match, polishing off the final three sets by scores of 25-16, 25-18 and 15-11.
Kenyon's rally started in that third set with
Maleah Miller recording two aces, helping to lift the Ladies to an early 7-2 lead. Later,
Maya Sapsford whipped up three straight aces and a kill from
Haley Witschey put Kenyon ahead 18-12. Later,
Lauren Limbach tacked on a pair of late kills that powered the Ladies to the set win.
In the second set against Moravian, the Ladies put together an early 8-2 run that set the tone. During that time,
Mackenzie Bruzzio chalked up a pair of kills and was followed by one kill each from Limbach, Witschey and Miller. A couple of serves later, Miller added one more kill to push Kenyon to a 13-5 lead. Moravian would pull to within four points late in the game, but kills from Miller and Limbach sandwiched an ace from
Jac Cousineau that sealed the Ladies' win and evened out the set score at 2-2.
With tons of momentum heading into the deciding set, Kenyon got two early kills from
Paige Milhon to take a 4-3 lead. Limbach then came up with two more huge kills for the Ladies, who forged ahead 10-6. Moravian closed to within one point twice, but Kenyon scored four of the match's last five points to claim victory. Three of those last four points came on kills from Davidson, Bruzzio and Witschey.
For the match, Kenyon amassed a season-high 59 kills while hitting at a .247 rate. Bruzzio had 17 of those kills, while Witschey and Limbach had 10 apiece.
Katie Howard tallied 21 digs and Milhon complemented her five kills with four blocks.
In the loss against Montclair State, Bruzzio again led the team with 12 kills.
Macy Reimbold racked up 11. Howard had 20 digs, giving her 41 for the day, and assists were split evenly between Sapsford and Cousineau, who each handed out 39 throughout the two matches.
The Ladies, now 5-14 overall, return home to start a series of five straight North Coast Athletic Conference matches. That run starts Thursday with a 6 p.m. home match against DePauw University.
