Ready to Compete
From Kenyon News - August 24, 2018
Fall sports are traditionally fruitful for the Lords and Ladies who, over the last five seasons, have collectively amassed eight regular-season North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) championships, six NCAC tournament titles and eleven victories in NCAA Division III tournament action.
With the 2018 slate forthcoming, Kenyon student-athletes are grinding through preseason practices and cultivating team chemistry, while coaches put in extra time to construct effective rosters and map out strategies that will ensure another successful campaign.
Soccer
On the soccer field, the Lords and Ladies return as defending conference champions. The Lords are coming off a 2017 season in which they posted a 16-3-3 overall record and a spotless 9-0-0 mark within conference play. That team registered 13 shutouts and a 0.562 goals against average, the 12th-best average among all teams in NCAA Division III. There are six starters returning to the 2018 roster, and the Lords, ranked No. 22 nationally by the United Soccer Coaches, will open their season by hosting John Carroll University on Friday, Aug. 31. Read more about the upcoming Lords soccer season.
Like the Lords, the Ladies soccer team is strong in the defensive zone. It’s fresh off a 2017 season that witnessed a program record 10 shutouts, as well as a 0.91 goals against average. That group of Ladies rang up a 9-7-3 overall record, a 7-0-1 record in NCAC play and, at one point during the season, went on a seven-game unbeaten streak, the second-longest in program history. The Ladies welcome back seven starters for their 2018 schedule, which gets underway on Friday, Aug. 31, with a home contest against Case Western Reserve University. Read more about the upcoming Ladies soccer season.
Field hockey
The Ladies field hockey team will also be defending a conference crown after earning a share of the title in 2017. The program has a 66-17 record over the last four seasons and put up a 15-4 overall record, including a 12-2 NCAC record, one year ago. In order to maintain that pace, the team’s three returning starters are going to have to lead the way. They’ll start their trek beginning Friday, Aug. 31, with a home game against Center College. Read more about the upcoming Ladies field hockey season.
football
On the gridiron, the Lords football team will once again feature its record-setting passing game, while looking for a maturing defense to make great strides. One year ago, the air attack inked program single-season records for pass completions, pass completion percentage and passing yards. That 2017 team didn’t produce the win-loss record it desired, but it did stay in games, losing five contests by 10 or fewer points, including three by six or fewer. The 2018 iteration of the Lords will hit the reset button Saturday, Sept. 1, with their season-opening game against Sewanee: The University of the South at McBride Field. Read more about the upcoming Lords football season.
volleyball
Indoors, the volleyball team continues to ride an upswing, having put together three consecutive winning seasons. The 2018 Ladies will be under the direction of a new coaching staff, as former assistant Kendra Mosher takes the reins and Leanne Schaefer moves into the assistant role. After taking fifth place in the NCAC standings last season, the Ladies look forward to bringing back four starters for the 2018 schedule, which begins Friday, Aug. 31, at the Marietta College River City Classic. Read more about the upcoming Ladies volleyball season.
golf
Ahead of kicking off the 2018-19 season, the Lords golf team found itself with a number 14 national rank in the preseason Bushnell Golfweek NCAA Division III Coaches Poll. The Lords head into the new season trying to carry over momentum from a 2017-18 campaign that included a pair of tournament victories, as well as runner-up finishes in three other tournaments. Overall, last year’s team had eight top-three finishes and the group’s team scoring average set a new program record. Despite losing two seniors, Coach Grant Wallace has plenty of returning players to work with in the upcoming season, which starts Sept. 1 with the two-day Transylvania University Invitational. Read more about the upcoming Lords golf season.
cross country
The cross country teams round out Kenyon’s fall sports. The Ladies had a solid 2017 season that included a third-place finish at the NCAC championship meet and a 10th-place showing at the NCAA regional championship. The six different runners who scored points in those two meets all return for the Ladies 2018 season. Meanwhile, the Lords battled through some growing pains with a young team last season and ended up in eighth place at the conference championship. They’ll try to run down better results, as will the Ladies, when the new season commences Friday, Aug. 31, with the annual Kenyon Tri-Meet. Read more about the upcoming Lords and Ladies cross country season.