Volleyball: #8 Ohio Northern (9-0 Overall) vs. Denison (5-4 Overall) and Wooster (7-2 Overall) at Wooster Kilt Classic
Saturday, September 18, 2021, 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. – Timken Gymnasium, Wooster, Ohio
Saturday's Preview: The Wooster Ginny Hunt Kilt Classic is a two-day event scheduled for Friday and Saturday featuring 10 matches among seven teams ... Joining No. 8 Ohio Northern and host Wooster at the event are Denison, Washington & Jefferson (Pa.), Bluffton, Roanoke (Va.) and Geneva (Pa.) ... The Polar Bears are not playing on Day 1 of the Classic and will play a doubleheader on Day 2 with matches against Denison at noon and Wooster at 4 p.m. ... Both games will be played on Court 1 ... ONU enters the event coming off of Wednesday's 3-1 home win over Defiance … Northern finished the match hitting .320 with 55 kills and 14 errors on 128 attempts … Freshman Taylor Baxter and senior Melina Woods led ONU with 10 and 9 kills, respectively, in the game … The Polar Bears' 9-0 start to the season marks the third-best start in school history and is the best start since the 1999 squad won its first 10 matches … The school record is 18 straight victories to open the 1990 campaign … Northern is currently hitting .256 as a team with 13.2 kills, 18.4 digs, 12.1 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.4 aces per set … The Polar Bears are led by seniors Melina Woods (111 kills, .368 hitting percentage), Hannah Irmer (196 digs) and Kiki Carle (291 assists) along with freshmen Taylor Baxter (36 blocks) and Rachel Jennings (24 aces) … Woods leads the Ohio Athletic Conference in hitting percentage and is fourth in kills … Irmer is tops in the OAC in digs … Carle ranks third in the conference in assists per set (8.56) … Baxter is second in the conference in both hitting percentage (.343) and blocks per set (1.00) … Jennings ranks second in the OAC in service aces per set (0.67) … Carle has 1,449 career assists, putting her 118 shy of tying Kelly Smerekanich for 10th on the program's all-time leaderboard in that category … Irmer has 1,096 career digs, which is 312 short of tying Molly Schrader for 10th on the program's all-time leaderboard in that category … Denison enters play on Saturday coming off Wednesday's 3-1 win at Bluffton … The Big Red received 2 voting points in this week's AVCA Division III Coaches Poll … Denison has played a difficult schedule that has included No. 6 Calvin (Mich.) and No. 9 Hope (Mich.) as well as three teams — Otterbein, Muskingum and Mount St. Joseph — in the "Others receiving votes" category in this week's AVCA Poll … Denison has a team hitting percentage of .197 and is averaging 12.9 kills, 16.2 digs, 11.8 assists, 1.9 blocks and 1.9 aces per set … The Big Red are led by freshman Daria Rodriguez (122 kills), junior Jenna Corrao (170 digs), sophomore Kirby MacKinnon (194 assists), junior Lucy Anderson (29 blocks) and sophomore Maddie Kurtz (15 aces) … Wooster goes into its home tournament on Friday riding a seven-game win streak after opening the season with consecutive losses to John Carroll and Mount Union … The Fighting Scots are scheduled to play two games each on Friday and Saturday … Wooster has a team hitting percentage of .233 and is averaging 13.1 kills, 17.3 digs, 12.2 assists, 1.3 blocks and 2.2 aces per set … The Scots are led by juniors Hayley Nash (122 kills) and Sydney Fitzcharles (150 digs, 17 aces) and seniors Syd Case (332 assists) and Katie Billetdeaux (21 blocks).
ONU Statistical Leaders:
Kills | Blocks | Aces | Digs | Assists | ||||||||||||||
1. | Woods | 111 | 1. | Baxter | 36 | 1. | Jennings | 24 | 1. | H.Irmer | 196 | 1. | Carle | 291 | ||||
2. | Baxter | 99 | 2. | Bowmar | 23 | 2. | Baxter | 9 | 2. | Jennings | 123 | 2. | Conrad | 82 | ||||
3. | Strozewski | 83 | 3. | Strozewski | 20 | 3. | Carle | 6 | 3. | Carle | 71 | 3. | Jennings | 20 |
All-Time Series: Ohio Northern leads the all-time series with Denison by a 24-1 margin … The teams' last meeting was in 2019 with ONU scoring a 3-1 road win … The Polar Bears lead the all-time series with Wooster by a 25-10 margin … The teams last met in 2014 with Northern coming away with a 3-0 victory in the ONU Invitational.
Head Coach Katie Kuhn: Kuhn is in her second season as the head women's volleyball coach at Ohio Northern with a 22-3 record, a winning percentage of .880.