Naseem Alansari

Jordan Burton Reflects on Five-Year Career as a Miner

11/15/2024 9:00:00 AM

By: Luke Kotcher, Assistant Athletics Communication Director

ROLLA, Mo. – Coming off breaking the all-time kill record, Jordan Burton is set to play in her final two home matches of her five-year career.

Jordan Burton came to Missouri S&T five seasons ago during the COVID-19 Pandemic. She is originally from Olathe, Kansas, just southwest of downtown Kansas City. Out of Olathe South High School, she finished with 973 kills with a top-five hitting percentage in school history. Her story of how she arrived in Rolla is unlike most.

“I hadn’t found S&T on my own, my dad mentioned it,” Burton said. “I thought S&T wouldn’t be interested in me. When the recruiting window opened, [former head coach] Andy [Halaz] reached out to me. I wasn’t 100% sold. The program struggled a little bit, so I had some other options, but the academics weren’t really fitting me. I chose my academics and education over stronger volleyball programs. I bought in to Andy’s ideas of turning the program around together.”

That was exactly what happened for Burton when she arrived at Missouri S&T. During her freshman campaign, the 2020 season was shut down due to the COVID-19 Pandemic so games were played in the spring of 2021. In that season, the Miners recorded 12 GLVC wins for the first time since 2015. As a team, they went 14-17 and 12-6 in the conference. S&T made it all the way to the GLVC championship for the first time but fell to Southern Indiana in the finals.

“The extra fall helped me to prepare for the season,” Burton said. “Going to club tournaments where there were thousands of people in one gym to nobody in one year was weird. We couldn’t hang our heads on anything, we played really well.”

After she was named the GLVC Freshman of the Year in 2020, Burton was named to the All-GLVC Second Team each of the next two years. Over that time, she appeared in 49 matches and recorded 591 total kills. S&T also made the GLVC Tournament in both of those seasons with positive records.

“There is some regret,” Burton said. “We left some opportunities out there that we did not take advantage of. I think that’s what fueled us into my senior year. We didn’t leave any doubt there.”

In that 2023 season, the Miners went 18-11 overall with an 8-5 GLVC record. Burton played in 29 total matches and collected 349 kills, a new career-high in a season. S&T picked up a win in the first round of the GLVC Tournament against Rockhurst but fell to Missouri-St. Louis in the semifinals. After the tournament, it was announced that the Miners would make the NCAA Midwest Regional for the first time in nine years.

“We started out [the season] going to Tampa Bay, Florida,” Burton said. “We saw some good competition and had a regional match with Central Missouri. That was a big win for us and that’s probably one of the biggest matches that helped get us into the tournament.”

“On senior night, we had Lewis and ended up beating them which was huge,” Burton said. “That also helped get in the tournament. Getting that revenge against Rockhurst [in the GLVC Tournament] was awesome. We weren’t 100 percent sure we were going to make it. We watched the selection show in the classroom, and it was a moment I will not forget.”

S&T matched up with Missouri-St. Louis once again and fell to the #4 ranked team 1-3 in the first round.

In terms of the 2024 season, Burton has gone through a multitude of injuries in her fifth year. She started out the season with surgery on her shoulder last December that she had to recover from in the spring. At the Pittsburg State Regional in September, something in her back tweaked when she was warming up and couldn’t play for five games. In mid-October, Burton jammed her thumb in practice but has been able to play through it.

“My body is feeling it,” Burton said. “My body is ready to be done, but my heart isn’t ready to be done.”

"The whole time she has been a good positive influence on the team," head coach Jacquie Cason said. "She's been a very big part of Missouri S&T success."

Going back to the Lewis match on Nov. 1, Burton broke the all-time kills record at Missouri S&T. She passed Krista Haslag’s record of 1,306 kills that she broke in 2015. Burton’s current total of 1,322 is 38th out of all current schools in GLVC history. When asked about the record, Burton reflected on her teammates and other supporters.

“My teammates were counting,” Burton said. “It was cool to see my teammates care so much about it. It just so happened that I got the record-breaking kill right before I substituted out. When I came out, everyone was so excited. Some people started tearing up because they saw my mom crying in the stands.”

She is able to hit with a lot of power," Cason said. "That's really nice to have on this team."

This weekend, the Miners will celebrate senior night, but it might feel a little different for Burton. Even though she celebrated senior night last season, Burton will be graduating after this season with her final home matches this weekend.

“It’s a big weekend and it has a lot of implications,” Burton said. “We just need to focus on what we can control as a team so we can go to the conference tournament. It would be all five years that I would go to the conference tournament. I want that, but I want it for my teammates more than anything. Playing in front of the home crowd one last time will be special and a little emotional.”

S&T’s final two home matches of the 2024 season are slated for Nov. 15 against Truman State at 6 p.m. and Nov. 16 versus Upper Iowa at 3 p.m. If the Miners win both matches this weekend, they will punch their ticket into the GLVC Tournament for the sixth straight season.

Follow Miners Volleyball on X and Instagram at miners_wvb

Missouri S&T Athletics

scoreboard

Jordan Burton Reflects on Five-Year Career as a Miner