ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Missouri S&T's third venture into the NCAA Division II Women's Volleyball Championships came to an end in the regional quarterfinal round Thursday night, as top-seeded Missouri-St. Louis took the final two sets to defeat the Miners 3-1.
The Miners and fourth-ranked Tritons split the first two sets, but UMSL (31-1) took the final two sets by counts of 25-17 and 25-18 to capture the match and advance to Friday's semifinal round to face Grand Valley State. Missouri S&T's season comes to an end at 18-11 after an 12-4 run to end the campaign.
UMSL hit .421 to the Miners' .152 in the opening set to win 25-16, pulling away with a 6-0 run midway through the set. S&T bounced back in set two as it recorded a .229 attack mark to UMSL's .178 to pull out a 26-24 win to even the contest at a set apiece.
The Miners built a five-point lead during the set, going up 16-11 after a kill by
Alina Carrillo (Oviedo, FL/Hagerty). But the Tritons clawed back into the set and drew even at 18 following a service ace by Kylie Adams, then the teams went back and forth for the remainder of the set until S&T finally pulled it out.
S&T got to set point at 24-23 after a kill by
Madelyn Mason (Mount Horeb, WI/Mount Horeb), then the Tritons got the tying point on a kill by Lexie Rang that the Miners challenged, but were unsuccessful.
Shelby Ply (Rolla, MO/Rolla) delivered a kill on the next point to put S&T back in the lead, then an attack error by UMSL's Delaney Humm put the set in S&T's column.
The third set saw the Miners get out of gate in good shape as they grabbed an early lead, but UMSL took the lead at 9-8 and held it for the balance of the set. The Tritons used a 5-0 run to get that lead and outscored S&T in one stretch 12-5 to go up by as many as seven points.
S&T hung with the Tritons during the front end of the fourth set and a Mason kill tied it at 12. However, UMSL ran off six straight points to build an insurmountable lead that eventually wrapped up the match.
The Miners hit .167 in the match – the second set was the only one where S&T hit better than .200 – while the Tritons finished at .331 as they hit .357 or better in the three sets in which S&T was below the .200 mark.
Mason, Carrillo and
Jordan Burton (Olathe, KS/Olathe South) all finished in double figures in kills, with Mason leading the way with 15 and a .379 attack percentage in the contest. Carrillo recorded 14 kills and also had two of S&T's six service aces, while Burton had 10 kills and only one attack error in the contest.
Annie Arand (Washington, MO/St. Francis Borgia) finished with 29 assists to lead the Miners in that department, while
Mia Alessio (Channahon, IL/Minooka) had 18 digs in the contest as one of four S&T players in double figures.
