Austin, Texas – The Missouri S&T Miner volleyball squad continued its best start in school history picking up two more sweeps on Saturday running its record to 4-0. The Miners downed Southern Nazarene in straight sets 25-17, 25-16, 25-20 and then concluded play in the Hilltopper Classic with a straight set win over Tiffin 25-19, 25-13, 25-12.

In their first match on Saturday the Miners used an 8-2 run to break an early deadlock and force Southern Nazarene to take a timeout. The Crimson Storm closed the gap to 15-12 on an error by Gracey Moon (Kirkwood, Mo./Kirkwood), but S&T responded with six straight points getting back-to-back kills from Moon and a pair of assisted blocks from Moon, Claire Luther (St. Louis, Mo./Lutheran South) and Shelby Wagner (Lee's Summit, Mo./Lee's Summit) to stretch the lead back to nine and cruised to the eight point win.

The Miners led wire-to-wire in the second frame building a 13-point lead at one point before SNU got it to eight, but it wasn't enough as Luther slammed home a kill from Jackie Pyles (White Lake, Mich./West Bloomfield) to give S&T a commanding 2-0 lead. The Miners hit just .206 percent in the second set but did hold the Crimson Storm to a .065 hitting percentage.

The third set was the tightest of the bunch as the two sides went back-and-forth the first 17 points. S&T began to break away thanks to kills from Moon and Carlie Combs (O'Fallon, Mo./St. Dominic) to start the run then Luther and Krista Haslag (Linn, Mo./Helias ) capped the run with back-to-back blocks at the net.  The Miners extended their lead to as many as eight points only to see Southern Nazerene climb back to three at 23-20. A service set up set point and then Haslag finished the match off with her eighth kill of the contest.

Combs and Moon led the way for S&T with nine kills apiece while Haslag added eight and Luther finished with five. Alexis White (Auburn, Wash./Riverside) dished out 22 assists and Pyles dug 16 balls. The Miners finished the match with an attack percentage of .221 (40kills/15 errors/113 total attacks) while holding the Crimson Storm to .069 hitting percentage for the match.

In the finale against Tiffin, S&T raced out to an early four point lead before the Dragons rallied eventually squaring things up at 16-all. The Miners answered back due in large part to four Tiffin errors in a 5-0 run that swung the set in S&T's favor. The Dragons wouldn't get closer than four points the rest of the way as Haslag had two kills and Claire Friedlund (Parkville, Mo./Park Hill South) added another to seal the deal.

S&T busted open the second set with a 9-1 run to overcome an early deficit and wouldn't look back as it cruised to the 12-point win. The Miners finished with 15 kills against three errors in the frame to finish with a hitting percentage of .414 and held Tiffin to an attack percentage of .130. The trio of Haslag, Moon and Combs combined for 10 of the 15 kills.

S&T overcame an early two point hole using an 18-4 run to bust the frame wide open as Combs, Friedlund and Luther had nine of the squad's 12 kills in the final set. The Miners again hit over 40 percent in the frame this time hitting a blistering .455 percent with 12 kills against two errors in 22 chances.

Combs finished with a match high 10 kills while Haslag had nine and Moon finished with eight. White distributed 34 assists while Pyles finished with 10 digs.

S&T returns to action next Friday traveling out to Denver to take part in the Premier Challenge hosted by Regis University and Metro State University. The Miners will face Ferris State right out of the gates in pool play beginning at 1 p.m. (Central Time) and will then play West Florida at 4:30 p.m. (Central Time) later that afternoon. Both of those matches will be held at Regis University.