Sandusky, Ohio - The Oberlin College volleyball team opened its 2024 season with a pair of matches on Friday evening at the Battle at the Point tournament at Sports Force Park. The Yeowomen dropped their first match of the day in four sets (23-25, 25-16, 16-25, 20-25) to the Kalamazoo College Hornets before falling in straight sets to Bluffton (24-26, 12-25, 14-25).
K'Zoo Recap
Senior
Cami Sweet led the way for Oberlin in the lid-lifter as she went error-free, hammering home 12 of 20 attempts for a 60-percent success rate. Junior
Zeynep Kaya led the way with 13 kills to accompany her team-high four aces.
Josie Macdonald and
Natalie Dufour each added eight kills in the loss. Making her primary setter debut,
Jillian Jendsen was impressive in keeping Oberlin in system as she delivered 40 assists, while classmate
Iris Archibald led the back row effort with 18 digs.
It was a nip-and-tuck first set with Oberlin in the lead 18-14 at the midway point but the Hornets came roaring back, scoring eight of the next nine points to grab a 22-19 advantage. Following a Macdonald kill, back-to-back Hornet attack errors leveled the session at 22-22, but K'Zoo would post three of the next four points to take the early advantage.
Oberlin rallied in set two, hitting an impressive .316 in the stanza with 14 kills against just two errors to even the match but the Hornets would control the next two sets pretty handily to finish off the victory.
Bluffton Recap
Oberlin was out of rhythm against the Beavers and never could get back on track after a tight first-set loss. For the match, the Yeowomen hit just .029 with 25 kills against 22 errors.
Oberlin took advantage of some wayward offerings from the Beavers in the middle part of the opening set, using a 5-0 spurt to grab a 15-11 advantage. Unfortunately, the Beavers answered back with five straight points of their own to reclaim the lead, 16-15.
After falling behind by as many as three, Oberlin would level the session at 21-21, and later led 23-22 but Bluffton wouldn't go away quietly, rallying to score four of the next five points to leave the Yeowomen shellshocked.
Oberlin never recovered as Bluffton cruised in the second and third sets without much resistance from the Yeowomen.
Kaya and Macdonald led the way with six kills each, while Archibald picked up 11 digs.
The Yeowomen will conclude their weekend in Sports Force Park in Sandusky, Ohio with a 10 a.m. match tomorrow morning against Muskingum University.
