ST. LOUIS — The Bellarmine University women's soccer team relied heavily on its defense this season to rise to the top of the Great Lakes Valley Conference standings.

But the 19th-ranked Knights stayed there on Friday at Don Dallas Soccer Field due to a resilient offense.

Battling back from a pair of deficits, Bellarmine posted a 2-2 tie in double overtime with Missouri-St. Louis in a crucial match in GLVC play.

Junior forward Mary Beth Gorham and sophomore forward Katie Fernandez scored goals for Bellarmine (13-1-2, 10-1-2 GLVC), which maintained its placement atop the league with two matches left. Missouri-St. Louis (10-1-4, 8-1-4) slipped to third behind Truman State (9-1-3 GLVC) as the race for the regular season title remains tight.

"All in all, a result is a result and we showed some real grit this time to answer the call after going behind twice," BU Coach Chris Tinius said. "You want to win every game, but if you can get a tie on the road against a team like that and at the end of a three-game stretch like that, you take it and run."

That difficult stretch included matches against Quincy (a 3-0 loss) and Truman State (a 1-0 win). Throw in the Tritons, and the Knights faced the Nos. 2-4 teams in the GLVC in consecutive matches. In the capper, BU trailed 1-0 and 2-1 before delivering an equalizer each time.

"Big picture: we're where we want to be," Tinius said. "We just finished 1-1-1 in three straight games against the other top three teams in the standings. Now we control how things turn out. We'll go back to work tomorrow and prepare for Sunday. This was a good stretch for our team, but it won't mean as much if we don't bring the right mentality to back it up."

Considering that heading into the match Bellarmine ranked second in the country in goals-against average and Missouri-St. Louis ranked sixth, the amount of goals in the first half — four — was shocking. The first came less than three minutes into the game, as Missouri-St. Louis' Kayla Delgado sank a shot from 25 yards out.

Roughly six minutes later, Gorham tied it up when she received a pass from senior forward Darcy Egan on the left side and buried a shot inside the far post. It was the 11th goal of the season for Gorham and 34th of her career, which moved her into sole possession of second place on the program's all-time list.

Missouri-St. Louis went back ahead in the 25th minute when McKayla Harder scored off a double assist credited to Miriam Taylor and Sidney Allen.

Bellarmine once again had an answer. After a Knights attacker was brought down by an UMSL defender in the box and a foul was called, Fernandez drilled the penalty kick to knot the match at 2-2 in the 34th minute.

Ultimately that score stood through the second half and two overtimes. Missouri-St. Louis collected 13 shots to 11 for Bellarmine, while the Tritons had eight shots on goal and the Knights tallied five. Sophomore goalkeeper Taylor Smith corralled six saves for BU.

"Well, you couldn't have more opposite of a game than what we've played all year," Tinius said. "I thought our transition going forward and ability to keep the ball was improved from last Friday (against Quincy). We created enough chances to probably score one or two more. On the flip side, our defending was a real struggle. Add in the attacking talent of UMSL, and they probably could have scored a couple more."

Bellarmine plays at 1 p.m. (ET) on Sunday at Maryville.

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