Box Score (St. Louis, Mo.) – The Missouri S&T Lady Miner volleyball team opened the second of Great Lakes Valley Conference West Division play dropping a 3-2 (22-25, 25-20, 15-25, 25-18, 12-15) decision at Missouri-St. Louis on Friday evening. S&T's lead in the division was cut to a game with the loss.

The Tritons (14-8, 8-4 GLVC) scored seven of the first eight points in the opening set in racing out to an 11-4 advantage. The Lady Miners (16-8, 9-3 GLVC) slowly began working its way back into the match eventually getting to with 19-18 thanks to a service error from Alisha Skaggs.  UMSL extended its advantage to 20-18 before S&T got kills from Melanie Shehorn (Flora, Ill./Flora) and Hayley Wright (Omaha, Neb./Millard West) tying the set at 20-20.

The Tritons ran off the next three points capitalizing on Lady Miner errors to take control. S&T closed to within 24-22 but got no closer as UMSL hung on for the 25-22 win.

The second set was tight early on before the Lady Miners began to pull away at the midway point. They extended a one point lead to six and were able to hold the Tritons at arm's length to win 25-20 and even the match at 1-1.

The third set was reversal of the second. With the score tied 11-all, UMSL scored 13 of the next 15 points to take a 24-13 advantage. S&T was able to get within nine but no closer as the Tritons won 25-15.

The Lady Miners led throughout the fourth set scoring the first four points and didn't look back. They led by as many as seven before UMSL clawed back within four. That would be the closest it got though as S&T pushed through to force a fifth set in winning 25-18.

In the finale the Tritons scored four of the first five points before the Lady Miners tied it at 4-4. UMSL responded running off five of the next seven points to take a 9-6 lead and force S&T to call a timeout. They responded out of the timeout scoring three straight to tie it back up at 9-all. The Tritons scored the next two points, but the Lady Miners responded with three straight to take their only lead of the set. The Tritons scored the final four points to win the set 15-12.

UMSL outhit S&T by a 19.7 percent-to-15.0 percent margin and had four more kills and four less errors.

Erin Bekebrede (St. Charles, Mo./St. Charles) led four Lady Miners in double figures with 13 kills. Kit Spears (Valley Center, Kan./Valley Center) added 12 while Jackie Zellmer (Nixa, Mo./Nixa) and Shehorn had 10 each. Jennifer Costello (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway South ) had 45 assists while Jocelyn DeMotte (Topeka, Kan./Hayden) dug up 30 balls.

Weslie Gaff had 20 kills to lead the Tritons. Chelsea Burkle had 14 kills while Erin Higgins and Corinne Hoekstra had 11 apiece. Anna McNulty had 48 assists while Katie Haseltine had 20 digs.

S&T returns to action on Saturday afternoon at Maryville University beginning at 3 p.m.