ROLLA, Mo. – The first season of men's volleyball at Missouri S&T will be a winning one for the program, as the Miners assured themselves of a record above the .500 mark Saturday by knocking off Thomas More in four sets at Gibson Arena.
The Miners and Saints split the first two sets – S&T took set one and Thomas More set two by identical 25-20 scores – before the Miners came away with 25-17 and 25-18 wins in the last two sets to improve to 11-9 on the season with just one game remaining on the schedule.
Set one was tight during the early stages, but the Miners had a 5-2 burst midway through the set to go up 17-12. Caleb Rowling had a pair of kills during that run, before S&T was able to increase its lead to eight before finally putting the Saints (12-12) away on a kill by
Aaron Sallade (Palatine, Ill./William Fremd).
S&T was hampered by 10 service errors in set two, a set in which it spent the entire time in arrears. The Miners trailed by as many as five points during the stanza, but outscored the Saints 7-3 in one stretch and got the margin down to one at 20-19 on a kill by
Nate Meyer (Arlington Heights, Ill./Hersey). However, the Saints ran off five of the final six points to even the match after two sets.
The Miners rebounded in the third set, trailing only after the initial point and pulled away after the score was tied at five. S&T scored four straight points on
Adam Kokal's (St. Louis, MO/Parkway Central) serve, including one service ace along the way and later used a 7-2 run to build a nine-point advantage. S&T locked up the set win on an ace by Rohlwing, one of 10 recorded by S&T in the match.
Thomas More held the lead for the early part of the final set – one that had 11 ties along the way – but S&T finally took the lead for good on a kill by
Zachary Carff (O'Fallon, Mo./St. Dominic) that gave the Miners a 15-14 lead. Carff's kill started a 10-2 run which included two blocks by Rohlwing to bring the Miners to match point, which Meyer provided for S&T after the Saints scored two points ahead of it.
Meyer finished the match with a game-high 17 kills as S&T hit .250 in the match, including marks of .381 in set one and .400 in set two.
Brayden Kuruzovich (State College, Penn./State College Area School District) finished with 40 assists and
Andres Hernandez (Bedford, Texas/Trinity) ended up with 25 digs in the match. S&T also had 14 blocks, with Kuruzovich in on seven and Rohlwing on six.
Missouri S&T will close out its inaugural season with a match against Maryville in St. Louis on April 4.
