ROLLA, Mo. – The Missouri S&T Miner volleyball squad will face a familiar foe in Grand Valley State to open the NCAA Tournament on Thursday evening. The Miners and Lakers have met five times in the past five seasons including earlier this season when S&T defeated GVSU 3-0 at the GLVC/GLIAC Crossover on Oct. 18.
The Miners, seeded sixth, enter Thursday's match with a record of 18-13 and have won six of their last eight contests. They're averaging nearly 13 kills per set and have an attack percentage of .202.
Krista Haslag (Linn, Mo./Helias ) leads the team in kills/set with 2.70, attack percentage .319, blocks/set (1.10) and points/set with 3.34.
Alison Mueller (Bartelso, Ill./Mater Dei ) and
Gracey Moon (Kirkwood, Mo./Kirkwood) are averaging 2.63 and 2.55 kills per set respectively.
S&T is ranked as one of the top defensive teams in the GLVC averaging nearly 18 digs/set which is good for third in the conference.
Jackie Pyles (White Lake, Mich./West Bloomfield) leads the way averaging 4.6 digs per set while
Emily Jaeger (St. Louis, Mo./St. Joseph's Academy) is averaging nearly three digs/set and
Allie Plunk (Hurst, Texas/Birdville) is at 2.81 digs per set.
Grand Valley, seeded third, enters Thursday's match with a record of 23-5 and were the regular season champions of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with a 17-1 mark. The Lakers had their six match winning streak broken by Ferris State in the GLIAC Tournament championship game 3-1. They've won 18 of their 23 matches in straight sets and their only loss in straight sets was against the Miners.
Grand Valley averages 13.2 kills per set and has an attack percentage of .196 and is holding its opposition to a .111 hitting percentage while averaging 19.3 digs per set and 2.3 blocks/set.
The Lakers have a very balanced offensive attack with three players averaging over two kills per set and are led by Betsy Ronda with 2.84 per set. Abby Aiken is averaging 2.39 per set and
Kaleigh Lound is at 2.17 per set. Kaitlyn Wolters runs the Laker attack dishing out 9.59 assists/set. Christina Canepa and Ronda lead the way on the defensive side of the ball with 4.81 and 3.56 digs per set respectively.
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