By: Luke Rinne, Assistant Sports Information Director
Box Score
(Springfield, Mo.) – The Missouri S&T Lady Miners christened Drury's brand new O'Reilly Family Events Center by winning an epic opening set on its way to a 3-1 (36-34, 25-18, 19-25, 25-15) win over the Panthers on Friday night in Springfield, Mo.
The opening set was a thriller that saw 16 ties and seven lead changes as both teams traded blows for the entire set. With the score tied at 16 all, Drury (15-8, 4-3 GLVC) scored three straight points to take the lead. That lead eventually stretched to 23-20 before the Lady Miners (10-7, 5-3 GLVC) came back to tie it with three straight of their own. The Panthers got to set point on an S&T miscue, but the Lady Miners refused to yield and evened it at 24 all on a Drury error.
The Panthers retook the lead at 25-24, but back to back errors by Ali Rook allowed S&T to take a 26-25 lead. A pair of errors by the Lady Miners gave Drury the lead back at 27-26, but the Panthers couldn't put it away. It continued to go back and forth until 34-34 when Erin Bekebrede (St. Charles, Mo./St. Charles) got back-to-back kills to end the opening stanza at 36-34.
Bekebrede had seven kills in the opening frame as the Lady Miners finished with 18 kills in the set. Kyrie Hopkins and Alex Smith had six kills apiece to lead Drury.
S&T fell behind 3-0 in set two before running off 12 of the next 14 points to take control of the set with a 12-5 advantage. The lead eventually grew to as many as 10 points on a couple of different occasions before Drury cut the lead to 24-18. That would be the closest it got as Kit Spears (Valley Center, Kan./Valley Center) hammered home a kill to give S&T the commanding 2-0 lead.
Samantha Klump (Ash Grove, Mo./Homeschooled) and Katie Herington (Kalona, Iowa/Mid-Prairie) paced the Lady Miner attack in set two combining for six of the eight kills. Hopkins and Smith once again led the Panther attack recording half of the team's 12 kills in the frame.
The third set was another tight one as it saw 11 ties and six lead changes. It was tied at 12 all before Drury went on a 5-1 run to grab the lead. S&T responded though with a run of its own to regain the lead at 19-18. The Panthers had the final say closing out the set on a 7-0 run to cut the Lady Miner lead to 2-1.
Bekebrede paced the S&T offense with seven kills in 14 chances in the third set. Hopkins and Smith once again were the Drury offense as the duo combined for 10 of the team's 13 kills.
The fourth set was all Lady Miners as they raced out to a 10-2 lead to open the frame. That lead eventually grew to 22-9 before the Panthers began to make things interesting by scoring six of the next eight points to get within 24-15. The rally came to end on Bekebrede's 20th kill of the match to give S&T the 25-15 set win and the match.
Bekebrede led all players with her 20 kills. Klump finished the match with 10 while Herington had eight. Jennifer Costello (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway South ) had 35 assists while Annie Smith (St. Louis, Mo./Incarnate Word Academy) was one of four Lady Miners in double figures in digs 17.
As a team S&T recorded 53 kills against 25 errors in 176 chances to finish the match hitting nearly 16 percent.
Hopkins and Smith had 16 kills apiece to lead Drury. Those two accounted for nearly 61 percent of the Panther offense. Austin Warren dished out 43 assists and Smith had 18 digs.
Drury also finished the match with 53 kills but committed eight more errors and one more chance than the Lady Miners to finish the match hitting 11.3 percent.
S&T heads up to Kansas City, Mo., to take on Rockhurst on Saturday afternoon beginning at 3 p.m.
