Box Score (Rolla, Mo.) – It wasn't easy at times on Friday evening but the Missouri S&T Lady Miners were able to prevail over the William Jewell Cardinals 3-1 (23-25, 25-14, 25-21, 25-17) and win the Great Lakes Valley Conference's West Division title outright.

The match didn't start well for S&T (22-8, 14-3 GLVC) as it fell behind the Cardinals (15-11, 7-10 GLVC) 6-2 early. The Lady Miners rallied with five straight but couldn't keep the lead. The two sides exchanged points until 10-10 when WJC ran off five of the next six to take a 15-11 lead.

The lead ballooned to 17-12 before S&T rallied again with six straight to take an 18-17 lead. Once again it couldn't hold it as Jewell rallied to take a 23-21 lead. The Lady Miners got within a point on a couple of occasions but no closer as Hannah Herndon ended the set with a kill giving the Cardinals the opener 25-23.

The second set was all S&T getting out to an early lead and never looking back on its way to a 25-14 win. Erin Bekebrede (St. Charles, Mo./St. Charles) had five kills in the set while Hayley Wright (Omaha, Neb./Millard West) added three more.

The third set saw five ties and a pair of lead changes early until the Lady Miners began to pull away about the midway point. They built a 17-12 advantage only to see WJC close within 18-16 on an S&T error.

The Lady Miners recovered though scoring five of the next seven to take a commanding 23-18 lead. The Cardinals got within 23-20 but no closer as S&T scored two of the final three points to win 25-21.

The fourth set played out exactly like the third until the midway point when once again the Lady Miners pulled away. They stretched a 9-7 advantage to 15-9 and never allowed WJC to get closer than six the rest of the way as S&T won 25-17.

The Lady Miners finished the match hitting 20.6 percent and had 57 kills. They held the Cardinals to just 9.6 percent.

Bekebrede finished the match with 18 kills to lead the way for S&T. Wright and Jackie Zellmer (Nixa, Mo./Nixa) had nine apiece while Kit Spears (Valley Center, Kan./Valley Center) and Kelly Kosmopolis (O'Fallon, Ill./O'Fallon Township) had seven each. Jennifer Costello (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway South ) had 43 assists and 12 digs while Jocelyn DeMotte (Topeka, Kan./Hayden) had 22 digs.
Bekebrede had 16 digs as well and Jennifer Kegler (Ballwin, Mo./Cor Jesu Academy) added 15 digs.

Herndon led WJC with 13 kills. Cailynn Hayter dished out 30 assists while Katie Dagmar had 19 digs.

The Lady Miners close out the regular season on Saturday afternoon hosting Rockhurst at 3 p.m. S&T will honor its two seniors prior to the start of the match.