ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's volleyball team recorded an impressive .365 hitting percentage and held the lead for nearly the entire afternoon as it rolled to a straight-set win over Illinois Springfield to close out its home and Great Lakes Valley Conference schedule Saturday afternoon at Gibson Arena.
The Miners hit .412 in the opening set and .467 in the second as it posted its best hitting mark in a contest this season, clearing the .300 mark for the fourth time this season. It was a match where the Miners trailed only during the early stages of set three as it moved to 16-8 overall and finished GLVC play at 8-4.
Missouri S&T will open play in the GLVC Tournament on Thursday as the fifth seed and will take on fourth-seeded Lewis in its opening round contest at 2:30 p.m. at the EastSide Centre in East Peoria, Ill.
S&T scored the first five points of the opening set and began the second set by outscoring UIS 11-2. In set one, the Miners got five kills from
Abigail Widiker (Hammond, WI/Saint Croix Central) and four from
Jordan Burton (Olathe, KS/Olathe South) as they recorded 16 kills with only two errors along the way. UIS, after getting its initial points to stop the early 5-0 run, only got as close as five points for the balance of the set, using an 8-2 run to pull away.
The Miners got out of the gate even quicker in the second set, building a 14-4 lead to force the Prairie Stars (12-12, 5-7 GLVC) to use the second of their two timeouts. UIS was able to close the gap to five at 15-10 and again at 16-11, but the Miners started to pull away and finished the second set win on the fourth kill of the segment by Burton.
The Prairie Stars got their only lead at the start of the third set and held the advantage until the Miners grabbed an 8-7 lead on another Burton kill. With the score tied at nine, S&T got a kill by Mason sandwiched between a pair of blocks that she was involved in to go along with a UIS side out to take control of the set.
Widiker finished with 14 kills and Burton with 13 to lead S&T, while Mason and
Shelby Ply (Rolla, MO/Rolla) had seven kills apiece. Mason and Ply also had a hand in four blocks apiece as the Miners had six as a unit, while
Hannah Merjil (Bakersfield, CA/Garces Memorial) recorded 33 assists and three players had at least 10 digs apiece, as Brooke McCartney and
Lexi Netherlain (Sullivan, IN/Sullivan) had 13 each while
Meiko Pearson (Overland Park, KS/Blue Valley Northwest) added 10.
