LEBANON, Ill.—After cruising to a 2-0 lead, the Bellarmine Knights volleyball team lost the momentum, but stiffened at crunch time to pull out a 3-2 victory at McKendree in an important Great Lakes Valley Conference match at the Harry Statham Center on Tuesday night.
 
The Knights rolled to relatively stress-free 25-21, 25-11 victories in the first two sets, but the host Bearcats roared back to square the match with 25-23 and 25-21 wins. 
 
After the hosts seemed to have knocked the Knights back on their heels, Bellarmine came out strong in the fifth set, winning the first two points. The Bearcats closed the gap to one on two occasions, but with Bellarmine leading 3-2, the Knights unleashed a 6-0 run to take control of the deciding set.  Fittingly, the match came to a close on a kill by Katie Adams, who notched a new career high with 17 kills.
 
The five-set triumph improved Bellarmine's record to 6-0 in five-setters this season and gave the Knights their ninth win a in a row as they improve to 18-8 overall and 9-6 in league play.
 
As has become the expectation from this Knights squad, the offensive production was well distributed with six players recording eight or more kills.  While Adams hit .364 in establishing a new career high, there was still plenty of action to go around.  Bailey Roszman, Julia Dailey and Abbie Oetting all recorded 10 kills on the night with Jacquie Hornung adding nine and Izzie Salameh chipping in eight.
 
Bellarmine setter Kristen O'Toole chalked up another double-double with 34 assists and 11 digs, but her most impressive statistic of the match was ripping off five service aces.  Meanwhile, freshman Sam Rickert added 24 assists and had a solid service game, which included a run of 11 points in the second set.
 
On defense, the Knights again put up solid numbers on the block. Salameh was credited with six block assists as Bellarmine finished with nine team blocks.  While the Bearcats recorded one more team block, the Knights held a significant 74-59 dig advantage as BU's Jordyn Kuchenbrod (17), Hornung (15), Karleigh Wilson (13), and O'Toole (11) all reached double digits in digs.
 
McKendree, which fell to 14-11, 8-5 GLVC, was paced by McKenna Ross with 15 kills while Alissa Zeitelhack posted 15 digs and Morgan Melchert handed out 43 assists.
 
The Knights stay on the road for their next action, which comes Saturday at Southern Indiana.  Match time is scheduled for 4 p.m. (3 p.m. CDT).
 
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