ROLLA, Mo.—After dropping the opening two sets, the Bellarmine Knights rallied to square the match, but the host Missouri S&T Miners regrouped to take the fifth set 15-9 to win a Great Lakes Valley Conference volleyball match tonight at the  Gale Bullman Multi-Purpose Building.

The great comeback effort from Bellarmine was appreciated by Head Coach Jenni Grzebin.  "It was a great game," she said. "One of the best I've seen from us.  I'm proud of our first four sets, and I look for us to be more committed to the things that got us to the fifth set."

The Knights got a huge effort from sophomore Margaret Horihan, who led Bellarmine in both kills and digs with 18 and 20 respectively. 

"Margaret has stepped up huge for us offensively on the outside," Grzebin said.  "She also improves our defense and serve receive and has the fight this program needs when the game is tight."

Bellarmine's fight was never more on display than in the third and fourth sets. Facing a sweep, the Knights dug in and posted their best hitting game of the match, while holding the Miners to the their worst (.314 to .174). Bellarmine jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead in the game, then weathered a bit of an S&T comeback, but never surrendered the lead. The Knights then won the set going away 25-19.

In the fourth, the script was almost reversed as this time the Miners bolted out to a 4-0 lead. The Knights fought back and used a 5-0 "mini-spurt" to claim their first lead at 10-9. Bellarmine surged ahead by as many as three, but S&T clawed back and actually had a match point at 24-23. The Miners committed a service error, however, and the Knights capitalized.  Bridget Guinane and Horihan got a block, and setter Allie Muha swung instead of setting on the next play and got the kill to claim the set 26-24 for the Knights.

In the fifth, S&T raced out to 4-1 lead. Bellarmine countered to tie it at six all, but it appeared that the Knights simply ran out of energy as the Miners closed the match with a 9-3 run to claim the victory (25-22, 25-23, 19-25, 24-26, 15-9).

On the offensive side, a total of four Knights had nine or more kills with Megan Kimbley contributing 14, Ashley Jefferson putting down 10, and Guinane adding nine to go along with Horihan's 18. Defensively, five different Knights recorded double digit digs: Jordyn Kuchenbrod matched Horihan's 20, Abby Schlaug had 17, Muha recorded 14, and Phoenix Fowler came up with 13.

Missouri S&T was led by Krista Haslag with 22 kills and Jackie Pyles with 23 digs. The Miners improved to 18-8 on the year and ratcheted their GLVC record up to 9-3.

The Knights, who are now 0-6 in five-set matches, fell to 10-16, 2-10 GLVC. 

Bellarmine returns to action tomorrow at Drury. The match is scheduled for a 2 p.m. (1 p.m. CDT) start, which represents a change from the original schedule.

BOX SCORE (HTM)