BALTIMORE, Md. – The Wesleyan volleyball team gave No. 9 ranked Johns Hopkins all they could handle in a 3-0 season-ending defeat in the NCAA Third Round (Sweet 16) on Saturday night from the Newton H. White Center. The Cardinals see a storybook 2023 campaign come to an end with a 24-2 overall record.
 
Despite the sweep, the score line could have been very different as the Cardinals lost the first and third sets by the thinnest of margins with identical 25-23 defeats. The Blue Jays dominated the second set to the tone of a 25-11 win, which catapulted Hopkins to the NCAA Quarterfinal (Elite 8) round.
 
Hopkins jumped out to an early 11-5 lead in the first set, with Wesleyan ultimately clawing back in and lowering the deficit to three points and then a 16-14 margin midway through the frame. It was still Hopkins leading but only by one point after Bella Ahearn '23 put away a kill to make it 21-20 Blue Jays. Johns Hopkins later had set point at 24-21, but the Cardinals got back-to-back points from a Michelle Jorba '25 kill and an Ahearn ace to make it 24-23. Needing one more point to send the set into extra points, the Cardinals fell just shy as Simrin Carlsen finished off the set with a kill for the Blue Jays.
 
The second set was all Hopkins as the Blue Jays hit .440 with 13 kills and just two errors on 25 attempts while the Cardinals had six kills with five errors, hitting .043. Hopkins jumped out to a 7-0 lead and never looked back, leading 19-4 at one point, before ultimately closing out the 25-11 second set win.
 
Wesleyan finally slowing down the Hopkins offense a bit in the third set, with the Blue Jays hitting .234 in the frame after hitting nearly .400 for the first two sets combined. Hopkins led 9-5 early, but a 4-1 Wesleyan run lowered the deficit to 10-9. The two sides traded points in the middle stages before a 4-1 Blue Jay run made it 21-16 Hopkins. The Cardinals, however, answered back with Jorba leading the way with three straight kills followed by a combined block with Kathryn Morton '24 as Wesleyan cut the deficit to just one point. Even with that momentum, one point was the closest Wesleyan would get to the lead as Hopkins held off the late Wesleyan charge and closed out the match with a block on match point.
 
Kate Long '24 led the way for the Wesleyan offense with 13 kills and just one error on 25 attempts, hitting .480 with five digs and two blocks in her final collegiate match. Jorba hit .391 with 11 kills and two errors on 23 attempts for the match.
 
Bianca Ortiz '24 finished with 20 digs as the NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year finished her senior year with 548 digs and 6.09 digs per set average, the second-highest per set average in program history.
 
Ahearn finished her career with six kills, five digs, two blocks and two service aces in her final match as a Cardinal.
 
The Cardinals completed an incredible season, making it to the Sweet 16 for the third time in team history, all of which in the last five seasons. The 24-2 overall record this seasons is the best single-season win percentage (.923) in team history.