JOEY SEMEL, Editor-in-Chief — Denison women’s volleyball swept a doubleheader on Saturday, and made it look pretty easy.

In the first game of the afternoon, the Big Red took all three sets in a 3-0 (25-21, 25-22, 32-30) win over Albion. They followed that up with a 3-1 (25-19, 19-25, 27-25, 25-18) win against Indiana-Southeast.

Both matches were controlled up front for the Big Red, as they dominated the tallies on both kills and blocks throughout. 

Lucy Anderson ‘23 did a lot of the heavy lifting, as she led Denison with 17 kills and three blocks in game one, and then followed that up with an 11 kill and four block performance to propel the Big Red to their second victory of the day.  

Fellow first-year Jenna Corrao ‘23 also had a strong day, leading the Big Red in digs in game one, and tying for the lead in game two. Joining her was outside hitter Carly Tenaglia ‘23. The duo each had 16 digs in the second win of the afternoon. 

Also contributing was Sidney Gossard ‘23. She was tied for the team lead with six aces between the two matches. Joining her was Emma Woerner ‘21.

The four first-years leading the way for the Big Red was pretty characteristic of this year’s team. Six of Denison’s main rotation are first-years.

That’s not to say that there isn’t senior leadership. Katie Aucamp ‘20 is one of those leaders. She spoke to how hard work during the offseason is paying off early on for the 5-5 Big Red.

“Holding each other accountable to do our summer workouts has helped us so far this year. By coming into preseason in shape, it allows us to get right into playing without having to worry if we can physically keep up or not,” Aucamp said.

As mentioned, it’s a young team, but that doesn’t mean they are looking past this season. Coming into this weekend’s match, Albion was 7-3 before they were quickly dispatched by the Big Red. Playing tough competition is important for conference play later in the season; just ask Aucamp.

“We have a pretty tough conference with teams like Wittenberg and DePauw so playing other tough teams in our out of conference play helps us see what we could expect from them. It helps us not to get rattled during our games against our conference opponents because we’ve been facing teams like them our entire season,” Aucamp said. 

She also used a classic sports motto to describe their goals for later in the season. You practice as you play.

“we want to be playing our best volleyball by the time we get to the conference tournament. In order to do that we need to continue to practice like we’re playing,” Aucamp said.

Up next for the Big Red are the Wilmington Quakers in a home match on Wednesday, September 18th at 7pm in Livingston Gymnasium.