Owls win first set, fall in four to Yellow Jackets

GAMBIER, Ohio – The Kenyon College volleyball team welcomed supporters to Tomsich Area for the second time this season on Tuesday night to take on the Baldwin Wallace University Yellow Jackets. After winning a tightly contested first set, the Owls dropped the following three sets to lose 1-3. 

Kenyon (3-11) battled hard during the first set as both teams exchanged points early. Eventually, Baldwin Wallace (7-7) jumped out to a 12-9 mid-set lead, with senior Lindsey Abramson leading the way with two kills for the Owls. 

Just as the first set began to slip out of reach as Baldwin Wallace took a 20-16 lead, the Owls were able to fire off a 9-4 run led by Aura Barinas’ four kills and steal the first set, the team’s third set one win in a row. The Owls outhit the Yellow Jackets .244 to .231 in the first and kills were notched at 15 apiece on the way to a 25-23 Kenyon win. 

Early in the second, the Owls hung with the Yellow Jackets to even the set at 4-4. After those early exchanges, Baldwin Wallace began to turn up the pressure, going on a 12-5 run and then a 10-6 run to win the set. In the second, the Yellow Jackets outhit the Owls .417 to .100 and held a 13-10 kill advantage with three aces to even the match 1-1. 

The Owls were not to be deterred in the third, matching the Yellow Jackets 10-10 to start the set, with Abramson and Rachel Ferarra pacing Kenyon with one kill each and aces by Lauren Blakemore and Maggie Wolf. After the contested points in the early parts of the set, Baldwin Wallace began to surge ahead, going on a 15-3 run to end the third set 25-13, putting the Yellow Jackets up 2-1.  

In the fourth and final set, the Baldwin Wallace attack became too much for Kenyon to handle, jumping out to a 7-0 lead. The Owls contested late to cut the deficit to 11-8, but would go on to lose the final set 25-10 and the match 1-3. 

Abramson led the Owls with nine kills and 10.5 points, while Wolf recorded a game-high 25 assists. Defensively, Ferrara and Bryn Carrigan recorded a team-high 1.5 blocks. Baldwin Wallace outhit Kenyon .298 to .053 and had a 54-32 kill advantage in the win. 

Kenyon’s loss drops the team record to 3-11 on the season. The Owls will travel to Springfield, Ohio, and look to bounce back in the second North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) match of the season against Wittenburg University at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.