UChicago Opens 2026 with Road Win at Millikin
The University of Chicago women's volleyball team opened its season with a big road victory on Tuesday night, taking down Millikin 3-1.
The Maroons jumped out of the gates strong with a 12-8 advantage in the opening set, but the Big Blue answered with 10 of the next 12 points to take an 18-14 lead. UChicago battled back to level the score at 21 on a kill by Thalita Marangon, and after Millikin retook a two-point lead, Adelee Kaiton evened the score at 23 with a kill of her own. However, the Big Blue recorded back-to-back kills to take the opening set 25-23.
In the second set, the two teams battled to a back-and-forth start to the set, but the Maroons scored five out of six points with kills from Olivia Zamis, Julia Lewkowitz, and Kaiton to push the advantage to 17-11. Despite a late comeback attempt by the Big Blue, UChicago rattled off six straight points to win the set thanks to another kill from Marangon and a service ace from Kaiton.
The third set remained competitive as neither team was able to build more than a two-point lead for the first 23 points of the set, but Millikin won seven of eight points to stretch out to a big 17-12 lead to take control of the set. With the momentum all in favor of Millikin, the Maroons did not flinch as they rattled off 12 consecutive points of their own thanks to a trio of service aces from Gabi Spellings and three big kills from Zamis. UChicago would wrap up the third set 25-19.
The fourth set was more of the same for UChicago as the team took an early 3-2 lead and never relinquished the lead. The Maroons scored five of the final seven points of the match on three kills from Marangon and two more from Lewkowitz to put away the four-set victory.
Head Coach Mitchell McPartland said, "I am really proud of the team's effort tonight. Going on the road on opening night to play a good team like Millikin was certainly a challenge, but our team rose to the occasion and competed really hard all night. Our first contact was really solid, and it allowed our offense to score when we needed to. Big shoutout to Olivia Zamis for her night, both offensively and defensively. It was a great win to carry us into our opening home weekend!"
Thalita Marangon led the offensive attack with a team-high 14 kills and 4 service aces. Olivia Zamis added 11 kills with a monstrous .588 hitting percentage, and Julia Lewkowitz added 11 kills and 3 service aces in her collegiate debut. In her first collegiate game as a part of a 6-1 offense, Ellie Maxwell was outstanding with career-highs of 43 assists and 14 digs in the victory.