Box Score (Rolla, Mo.) – The Missouri S&T Lady Miners ended its 2011 regular season with a hard fought 3-1 (25-23, 23-25, 25-18, 26-24) over Rockhurst on Saturday afternoon. The match saw 41 ties and 14 lead changes but in the end it was S&T the ones left standing to win its seventh straight.

The Lady Miners (23-8, 15-3 GLVC) will head to Indianapolis next weekend to take part in the GLVC Tournament against Missouri-St. Louis next Friday afternoon at 12 p.m. (CST). S&T will be the third seed in the tournament while the Tritons will be the sixth seed.

S&T used an all-around balanced attack to defeat the Hawks (15-14, 9-9 GLVC). The Lady Miners had three players reach double figures in kills led by Erin Bekebrede (St. Charles, Mo./St. Charles) with 22. Jackie Zellmer (Nixa, Mo./Nixa) added 15 while Kit Spears (Valley Center, Kan./Valley Center) contributed 11. Jennifer Costello (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway South ) dished out a career-high 62 assists. S&T also had five players record double figures in digs led by Jocelyn DeMotte (Topeka, Kan./Hayden) with 29. Bekebrede had 25, Jennifer Kegler (Ballwin, Mo./Cor Jesu Academy) added 17 while Spears and Costello added 10 apiece.

In the opening set neither side had bigger than a two point lead as there were 15 ties and six lead changes alone. With the score tied at 23-all, S&T was able to win the stanza thanks to a kill from Bekebrede and then she and Melanie Shehorn (Flora, Ill./Flora) combined for a block on Kaitlynn Kann's attack attempt for the win.

The Lady Miners trailed by as many as four in the second set and got within a point on numerous occasions but were unable to overtake Rockhurst in falling 25-23.

The third set was tied at 16-all at the midway point before S&T pulled away late scoring nine of the final 11 points to take a 2-1 lead into the fourth set. Bekebrede hit 67 percent in the frame recording six kills in nine chances. Spears, Zellmer and Alison Mueller (Bartelso, Ill./Mater Dei ) added four kills each in the frame.

The Hawks led for most of the fourth set with multiple four point leads but the Lady Miners battled back to within 23-20. Unlike the second set S&T overcame the deficit this time scoring six of the final seven points to win 26-24 getting back-to-back kills from
Shehorn and Bekebrede to finish the comeback.

Rockhurst was led by Maggie McGovern with 15 kills and Emily Ready with 10. Leah Grant had 37 assists while Victoria Mahl led six players in double figures in digs with 15.