The Kenyon women’s basketball team concluded the 2024-25 season with a 62-39 loss to Oberlin College at home. After picking up two wins in the first month of their season, the Owls closed the season on a 16-game losing streak to end the campaign 2-22 (0-14 NCAC).
Though Kenyon had already been eliminated from playoff contention prior to Saturday’s game, Oberlin was still vying for the right to host its first-round matchup. The Yeowomen came out with a vengeance, putting home a 3-pointer just 11 seconds into their wire-to-wire win. Just over two minutes into the game, Alyssa Horsley ’28 connected on a jumper for the Owls’ first points of the game, but a 7-0 run from Oberlin put Kenyon on the back foot for the rest of the first.
Heading into the second quarter down 17-8, the Owls finally found some offensive flow. A pair of twos from Katherine Organ ’28 and Horsley, as well as a 3-pointer from Grace Murphy ’26, cut the Yeowomen lead to four points and forced the visitors to call timeout with six minutes to play in the quarter. Unfortunately for Kenyon, Oberlin started hot out of the timeout, while the Owls scored just four more points, and Kenyon headed to the locker room down 32-19.
The second half was not any kinder to Kenyon, as Oberlin continued to grow its lead. The Owls scored just six points in the third quarter, even as they held the Yeowomen to their poorest shooting quarter of the game, allowing just 4-of-15 shooting from the field and 0-of-6 from three. The two teams followed up the lowest-scoring quarter of the game with the highest-scoring, as Oberlin outscored Kenyon 19-14 in the final period of the Owls’ season. Chiara Nevard ’25 hit a 3-pointer, the final shot of her career and of Kenyon’s campaign, to close out the 62-39 loss.
Horsley ended the game with 12 points and eight rebounds, while Murphy and Mollabashy each joined her in double figures with 10 points. Despite the loss, Murphy saw positives in the team’s final game. “One of the most important things we can take away [from the game] is the value of staying confident in ourselves as individuals and a team, even when things get tough,” she wrote in an email to the Collegian. “Our ability to adjust and keep working hard reflects our commitment to improving, and it’s something we’ll continue to build on moving forward.”
Despite the difficult end to the season, Kenyon will return a number of starters, including the first-year duo of Horsley, who led the team in scoring, rebounding and playing time, and Mollabashy. Murphy is optimistic about the future of Kenyon women’s basketball: “Our goal is to take everything we’ve experienced this season — the challenges, the growth, and the lessons — and use it as the foundation to elevate both our culture and our performance moving forward. We get eight months to work to become the best team we can be before next season, and I am confident our team will put in the work to get us to where we aspire to be.”