EAST PEORIA, Ill. – Missouri S&T and Lewis took their quarterfinal match in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament to a fifth set Thursday afternoon, but the Flyers prevailed over S&T as it won the decisive set 15-9 to win the match three sets to two at the EastSide Centre.
After winning the opening set, the Miners dropped the next two before winning set four 25-21 to force the match to the fifth set. S&T made up three points of a four-deficit it faced at the changeover in the final stanza, but could never draw even before the Flyers (20-8) scored the final five points to win the match and end the Miners' season with a record of 16-9.
S&T's hitting attack was held down for much of Thursday's match, but the Miners did post a .270 hitting mark to win the opening set. The contest was back-and-forth during the first set as there were 12 ties and seven lead changes along the way before the Miners took the lead on the final change to win the set.
Lewis led 22-21 before a kill by
Abigail Widiker (Hammond, WI/Saint Croix Central) tied it at 22, which was followed by a block from Widiker and
Shelby Ply (Rolla, MO/Rolla) to put S&T in the lead.
Madelyn Mason (Mount Horeb, WI/Mount Horeb) followed with a kill and then the Miners closed it out with their sixth block of the set, which came courtesy of Ply and Mason for the 25-22 win.
The Flyers led from start to finish in their 25-19 set two win as they held S&T to a minus .021 hitting percentage, then rallied late to take the third set 25-21. Lewis led for most of the middle stages of set three, but a 7-0 Miner run gave S&T a 19-16 lead. The run started with a kill by Ply, then S&T was able to draw closer thanks to two ball handling errors and forcing two sideouts to take the lead.
A service ace by Widiker was followed by a kill by
Jordan Burton (Olathe, KS/Olathe South) to extend the lead before the Flyers halted the run, but S&T regained its three-point advantage on another kill by Ply to go up 20-17. However, Lewis followed with a run of its own, scoring five straight points to retake the lead.
The Flyers scored eight of the final nine points in the third set to eventually win 25-21.
S&T bounced back in the fourth set, leading for much of the way and holding off a Lewis surge that eventually saw the Flyers tie the match late in the set. The Miners forced three straight sideouts to take a five-point lead midway through the fourth, but Lewis clawed back and caught S&T at 20 before a kill by Mason sparked it to the set win.
Mason and Widiker each had a kill to put S&T up 22-20 as the Miners would end up scoring five of the last six points to even up the match.
S&T got the initial point of set five on a kill by Widiker, but that would be its only lead in the fifth. Lewis scored four straight points to take a 7-3 lead and led 8-4 at the changeover, before a kill by Burton and a service ace by
Annie Arand (Washington, MO/St. Francis Borgia) helped bring the Miners back to within a point. S&T got back to within one again at 10-9, but Lewis ran off the final five points to bring the match to an end.
The Miners got 13 kills apiece from Mason and Widiker and 12 from Burton, but hit only .102 as a team in the match as they were guilty of 30 attack errors. Ply finished with nine kills and had a hand in 10 of S&T's 14 blocks in the match.
Hannah Merjil (Bakersfield, CA/Garces Memorial) finished with 33 assists and
Lexi Netherlain (Sullivan, IN/Sullivan) recorded 23 digs, which allowed her to also move into the top 10 on the Miners' career list with 902 in her final game at S&T.
