ROLLA, Mo. – After playing at Gibson Arena for the past three weekends, Missouri S&T's women's volleyball team heads to the road this weekend for a pair of Great Lakes Valley Conference matches as it will play against Southwest Baptist and Drury.

The Miners, 8-4 overall and 1-1 in the GLVC, will take on SBU Friday at 6 p.m. in Bolivar, Mo., and conclude the weekend away from home with Saturday's 3 p.m. contest against Drury at the O'Reilly Family Events Center.

S&T began its GLVC schedule last week by splitting two matches at home, falling in five sets to Quincy Friday before taking a straight-set decision the following afternoon from Illinois Springfield.  The Miners led 2-1 in the match against Quincy and held leads in the fourth and fifth sets and was unable to finish off the win, but rebounded the next day to even their record in conference play.

Jordan Burton (Olathe, KS/Olathe South), who is second on the team in kills to Madelyn Mason (Mount Horeb, WI/Mount Horeb) with 143 on the season, recorded 30 in the two matches which also included the 1,000^th of her career, becoming the seventh player in program history to reach that milestone.  Burton had 14 kills in Saturday's win, while Mason recorded 19 in the Quincy contest to up her season total to 157.

Shelby Ply (Rolla, MO/Rolla) has 111 kills on the season and is hitting .362 on the year, a mark that ranks fifth in the GLVC.  Ply is also among three Miners in the top 10 in the conference in blocks with 44, with Mason leading in that department with 46 and Madison Offerman (Herscher, IL/Herscher) having 32; Offerman's average of 1.14 per set ranks second in the conference.  The Miners lead the GLVC as a team in blocks with 2.4 per set.

Meiko Pearson (Overland Park, KS/Blue Valley Northwest) leads the Miners with 157 digs on the year and Alina Carrillo (Oviedo, FL/Hagerty) has 140, while Annie Arand (Washington, MO/St. Francis Borgia) has 266 assists and Elise Mehaffy (Marion, IA/Marion) has recorded 239 on the year.

In all eight of their wins this season, the Miners have each of those teams to a hitting percentage of under .200 and opposing teams have a mark of .174 for the season.  Meanwhile, the Miners have hit .250 or better in five of their last six contests and have a .224 attack percentage for the season.
 
ABOUT SOUTHWEST BAPTIST:  The Bearcats come into Friday's match at 7-7 overall and dropped their first two GLVC decisions with straight-set losses at Indianapolis and Lewis over the weekend.  Rolla native Loran Pritchett leads the Bearcats with 161 kills on the season, while Ella Rademaker has 160 kills and is hitting a team-best .244.  Rory Stanley heads SBU in blocks with 41 on the year and Paityn Kramer has recorded 162 digs.  Friday's game will be the home opener for Southwest Baptist.

ABOUT DRURY: The Panthers have gotten off to a slow start in the 2023 season with only one win in 12 matches and also lost GLVC games last week to Lewis and Indianapolis in straight sets.  The Panthers – whose home opener will take place Friday as well when they host Maryville – are paced in the attack column by Juliana Squire with 143 kills, while Kayli Duncan has 35 blocks on the season.  Squire is also second on the team in digs with 201, trailing only Lexi Basler's mark of 206.