Rolla, Mo. – Missouri S&T's volleyball team returns home this weekend to host Bellarmine and sixth ranked Lewis. This weekend begins a stretch that sees S&T play four of its next five matches at home. The lone exception is the game at Drury next Tuesday at 7 p.m. Friday night's match against Bellarmine will start at 6 p.m. while Saturday's match against Lewis is scheduled for a 3 p.m. start.
The Miners (8-16, 1-10 GLVC) dropped a pair of road matches last weekend getting swept at Missouri-St. Louis and Illinois Springfield. S&T struggled offensively in the two contests averaging just 9.5 kills per set and had an attack percentage of .075.
Payton Gannaway (Lawrence, Kan./Lawrence Free State) led the squad averaging 2.40 kills per set over the weekend while
Carlie Combs (O'Fallon, Mo./St. Dominic) and
Claire Friedlund (Parkville, Mo./Park Hill South) added 2.00 kills/set each.
The Knights enter Friday night's contest with a record of 18-5, 8-3 in GLVC action. They went 2-0 last weekend sweeping past Southern Indiana and then upset top ranked Lewis in a five set thriller. Margaret Horihan, who was the GLVC Offensive Player of the Week, led the squad averaging 4.63 kills per set and registered back-to-back doubles. She is ranked second in the GLVC in kills per set with 4.13.
The Flyers (20-2, 9-1 GLVC) had their 15 match winning streak snapped at Bellarmine on Saturday and will take on Drury on Friday night before heading to Rolla on Saturday.
Elizabeth Hyland leads a balanced attack for Lewis averaging 3.72 kills per set while Aly Schneider is averaging 2.97 kills/set. Maddie Seliga and Alexandra Preuss are contributing 2.70 kills per set respectively. Abby Becker runs the offense dishing out 11.19 assists per set and Ronni Katarzynski leads the way on the defensive side of the ball with 4.25 digs per set. The Flyers are the top ranked blocking team in the conference averaging 2.63 per set.
Next Tuesday the Miners head down to Springfield looking to avenge an earlier loss to Drury. The Panthers defeated S&T 3-2 back on Sept. 14. Drury is 17-8 overall but just 6-6 in league play after getting swept at Illinois Springfield last Friday and then fell in five sets at Quincy on Saturday.
Sarah Kite and Bentley Mara led the Panther attack averaging 3.56 and 2.93 kills per set respectively. Kendra Sater is the quarterback of the offense handing out 11.41 assists per set and Bree Schmidt is the leader on the back line recording 4.94 digs per set.
