(Rolla, Mo.) – After a sluggish start on Friday night the Missouri S&T volleyball team cruised to a 3-0 win over Quincy (25-16, 25-14, 25-16) at the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building. The Miners (10-7, 7-3 GLVC) held the Hawk (3-14, 1-9 GLVC) to a negative .029 hitting percentage for the match and finished with eight total blocks.
S&T fell behind 6-1 to open the match giving away three of those points on attack errors. The Miners were able to right themselves with a 10-3 run to take the lead 11-9. Quincy continued to hang around though and trailed 15-14 at the midway point of the opener. S&T outscored the Hawks 10-2 down the stretch to take the opener easily.
After its slow start the Miners finished the opening frame hitting .147 with 11 kills against six errors in 34 chances. Krista Haslag (Linn, Mo./Helias ) and Jackie Zellmer (Nixa, Mo./Nixa) led the way with four and three kills respectively.
The second set was tight early before S&T scored six straight points extending a 6-5 lead to 12-5 thanks in large part to four Hawk errors. Quincy wouldn't get closer than six points the rest of the set as the Miners built an 11-point lead on their way to the 25-14 win.
In almost a carbon copy of the second set S&T held a tight lead early but slowly began to pull away building a five-point lead midway through the third frame. The Hawks would get the deficit to three only to see the Miners stretch it back out to seven and cruise to the nine-point win.
S&T finished the match with 36 kills against 19 errors in 105 chances and had a hitting percentage of .162. Gracey Moon (Kirkwood, Mo./Kirkwood) and Haslag combined for nearly half of those kills with 17. Haslag had five total blocks in the contest while Moon added three total blocks. Allie Plunk (Hurst, Texas/Birdville) distributed 21 assists while Jackie Pyles (West Bloomfield, Mich./West Bloomfield) had 15 digs.
Quincy recorded 22 kills in the contest, but committed 25 errors also in 105 attempts. Jessica Licurgo led the Hawks with six kills while Bekah Raebel and Gianna Lincoln had four kills each. Miranda Rodriguez had 14 assists and Rachel Shores had 11 digs.
The Miners will play a pair of matches on Saturday against Truman at 12 p.m. and then after a break will take on Harding (Ark.) at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow night. The Bulldogs and Bison will play each other at 3:45 p.m.
