The Case Western Reserve University volleyball team picked up its first win of the season, sweeping Kenyon College 25-16, 25-10, 25-16, to begin play at the Great Lakes Cross Over at Frann's Fieldhouse on the campus of Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio, on Friday night.

The Spartans improved to 1-1 with victory, while the Owls dropped to 0-3 with the loss.

Stats and Standouts

• First-year Maya Zarow paced the squad with 11 kills and a .647 hitting percentage with senior Katie Yanni adding nine kills in just two sets
• First-year Piper Starling (22 assists) and junior Avery Basinger (16 assists) split the setting duties, with Starling leading the team with nine digs while Basinger added two aces
• First-year Ava Felgar contributed seven kills, two aces, and two digs, and senior Sude Naz Item added eight digs
• Overall, CWRU had a .371 hitting percentage (49 kills) while holding Kenyon to a .110 hitting percentage (23 kills)
• The Spartans had nine service aces as a team

First Set (25-16)

• The Spartans took a four-point lead early in the set and used a 4-0 run to take an 11-5 advantage on a kill by junior Sienna Olson
• Kenyon cut the deficit to four, but a pair of kills, a service ace, and an attacking error put CWRU ahead by eight, 15-7
• An ace by Basinger gave Case Western Reserve an 18-8 lead, the team's largest of the stanza
• Senior Emily Goodpaster closed out the set with a kill, her second of the evening

Second Set (25-10)

• Leading 6-5, CWRU scored five consecutive points on the service of Basinger and took a 13-6 lead on an ace by Item
• Back-to-back kills by Zarow and sophomore Olivia Myers gave the Spartans a 15-7 edge
• A Zarow kill followed by two consecutive Kenyon errors gave the Spartans a 10-point edge, 18-8, and kills by Olson and Felgar increased the lead to 12
• Case Western Reserve won five of the final seven points to clinch the second set

Third Set (25-16)

• The teams battled early in the final set with the Owls taking an 11-9 lead
• The Spartans won six of the next seven points to gain a 15-12 edge on an ace by Item and added to their lead with kills by first-year Remy Foos and Yanni
• A 4-0 put CWRU ahead 21-14, and the Case Western Reserve clinched the match by winning four of the last six points
• First-year Sophie Bell secured the victory with a service ace

Spartan Notes

• CWRU improved to 8-1 in the last nine matchups with Kenyon with six sweeps in the eight victories
• Zarow had at least 10 kills for the second consecutive match
• The nine service aces are the most by a Spartan team since putting down 12 on October 12, 2025, against WashU
• Case Western Reserve recorded its 11th best hitting percentage in a single match all time, and its best hitting percentage as a team in a single match since November 2, 2019 (.373 vs. Buffalo State)

Up Next

The Spartans will face the host Student Princes at 9 a.m. followed by a matchup with Hanover at 11 a.m.