ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The Missouri S&T women's volleyball team opened their 2022 campaign Thursday night at the Mark Twain Building for the opening match of the Triton Invitational, hosted by Missouri-St. Louis. The Miners (1-0) drew the host UMSL to begin the event and started the night strong, hitting over .400 in each of the first two sets before staving off the home Tritons (0-1) in a closely contested third frame to win in straight sets by scores of 25-16, 25-18, 27-25.
UMSL scored four of the first five points of the evening to take an early lead in the first set, but after going up 5-3, the Miners rattled off four-straight points thanks to a trio of miscues from the home team and an
Abigail Widiker (Hammond, WI/Saint Croix Central) ace to take their first lead of the night at 7-5. The Green & Gold never looked back from that point on, as they gradually extended their lead led by
Jordan Burton (Olathe, KS/Olathe South),
Madelyn Mason (Mount Horeb, WI/Mount Horeb) and
Shelby Ply (Rolla, MO/Rolla) to go up 15-10. The Miners held the Tritons to just a .119 hitting percentage in the opening frame while hitting .440 themselves as they went on to take the first set 25-16.
Missouri-St. Louis again scored first in set two, but Missouri S&T was able to take advantage of several offensive miscues by the Tritons and coupled with kills by Mason and Widiker, string together a 7-2 run to lead 8-4. Much like in set one, the Miners were able to keep their lead at a comfortable margin throughout the set and despite the gap closing to four on a few occasions, the lead was never really threatened as the offense continued to execute, hitting .412 in the set to take the set 25-18.
In the night's final frame, it was S&T who got on the board first to lead 4-2, but the Tritons were able to finally muster a response as they battled back to even things up a 5-5 and pace the Miners for the next few points before the two sides exchanged the lead four times. After UMSL went back ahead 8-7,
Hannah Merjil (Bakersfield, CA/Garces Memorial) evened things back up with a kill that ignited a 5-0 run that included two more kills from Burton that made it 12-8 in favor of the visitors. Again, Missouri-St. Louis battled back, going on a 7-2 run of their own following a timeout to regain the lead at 15-14. As the match entered the final stages, two teams matched each other blow for blow until UMSL managed to pull away at 22-19 and threatened to force a fourth set. Kills from Mason and Widiker along with block from the latter and
Madison Offerman (Herscher, IL/Herscher) tied things back up at 22 before the lead changed hands again in favor of S&T at 24-23. The Tritons tied things up again at 24 and 25 all, but a bad set and a final kill from Ply wrapped things up as S&T claimed set three 27-25.
Burton led the way with 13 kills and hit .375 for the match, while Mason logged 11 kills and hit .476 while being in on four blocks. Widiker recorded a double-double with 10 kills and 17 digs while Ply finished the night with eight kills and three blocks. Freshman
Annie Arand (Washington, MO/St. Francis Borgia) led the way with 21 assists in the match while Merjil added 19 more.
Lexi Netherlain (Sullivan, IN/Sullivan) also added 15 digs on the defensive side of the ball during the match.
The win Thursday night was the fourth time under head coach
Andy Halaz that the Miners have won their season opening match.
Up next, the Miners will be in action twice Friday, first against Southern Arkansas at 12:30 PM and against Saint Leo tomorrow evening at 8 PM.
