ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – The Missouri S&T Miner volleyball squad ran its winning streak to four in a row grounding the Lewis Flyers 3-1 (25-21, 21-25, 25-21, 25-21) on Sunday afternoon. With the win S&T moved one step closer to advancing to the GLVC Tournament for a fourth straight year.

The Miners (16-11, 11-5 GLVC), seeded seventh this week's NCAA regional rankings, also picked up a key in-region win as Lewis was ranked sixth in the regional rankings.
Alison Mueller (Bartelso, Ill./Mater Dei ) matched her career-high with 16 kills in the contest for her third consecutive match with double figure kills and fourth in the last five while Jackie Zellmer (Nixa, Mo./Nixa) contributed 10 to the attack.

S&T led by as many as six in the opening set before the Flyers (20-6, 12-4 GLVC) began to make a comeback to get within 19-17 on an attack error by Gracey Moon (Kirkwood, Mo./Kirkwood). The Miners were able to hold off the Lewis charge stretching the lead back to five on a pair of kills from Mueller. The Flyers didn't get closer than three the rest of the set as S&T hung on to take the opener.

Both sides recorded 13 kills in the first set, but the Miners committed three fewer errors to outhit Lewis .312-to-.184. Mueller had six kills to lead S&T in the stanza.

S&T trailed by five in the second set, but came back to tie it up at 15 on an error by Morgan Cebula. The Flyers answered the Miner run with four straight points and appeared to be in control. S&T continued to battle and closed to within one twice, but couldn't get over the hump as Lewis scored the last three points of the set to even the match at 1-1.

The Miners got off to a great start in the third set scoring the first five points and nine of the first 11. The Flyers cut the margin to 10-7 with a double block from Cebula and Kim Vertin, but
S&T wouldn't let Lewis get any closer than three points the rest of the set to win the swing set 25-21. Mueller and Zellmer combined for nine of the Miners 14 kills in the set.

In the finale it was the Flyers coming out of the gates strong opening an early five point lead. S&T began to chip away at the lead and eventually overtook Lewis with an 8-1 run to grab a 19-17 lead and forced the Flyers to take a timeout.

They scored the first point out of the timeout, but the Miners scored four of the next five to take a commanding 23-19 lead. Lewis closed the deficit to two points getting a double block and a kill, but wouldn't get any closer as Krista Haslag (Linn, Mo./Helias ) recorded a kill setting up S&T with a match point. The Miners then ended the match on the next possession as Moon and Katie McDonald (Orland Park, Ill./Providence Catholic) teamed up to stuff Cassidy Parsons at the net to end the match.

S&T finished the match with 54 kills against 22 errors in 154 swings and had an attack percentage of .208. Allie Plunk (Hurst, Texas/Birdville) finished with five kills to go along with 43 assists and 22 digs while Jackie Pyles (West Bloomfield, Mich./West Bloomfield) had a match-high 22 digs.

The Flyers registered 51 kills but committed 25 errors in 161 chances to finish with a hitting percentage of .161. Alexis Davito and Vertin led Lewis with 12 and 10 kills respectively while Leigh Barea had 44 assists and Amy Choi dug 17 balls off the floor.

The Miners are back in action on Friday evening traveling to Kansas City, Mo., to take on Rockhurst at 7 p.m.