Box Score RAPID CITY, S.D. --- The South Dakota School of Mines women's volleyball team was poised to pull off a late-match rally, but Regis University proved to be too much as the Hardrockers fell to the Rangers, 3-1, in a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference matchup Saturday afternoon in Rapid City.

The Rangers took the first two sets before SD Mines turned the momentum of the match and earned the third-set victory. A competitive fourth game looked as if it were going to go the way of the home squad, but Regis was able to stave off the Hardrockers' advance and escape with the 3-1 win.

"We showed a lot of growth today—especially in the latter half of the match," said Hardrocker volleyball head coach Doug Tabbert. "The slow start was disappointing and we didn't handle it all that well as a team.  However, we were a dramatically different team after the intermission. We responded well to the changes in personnel starting in the third set and played much more inspired and confident from that point on.  It was good to see us compete as well as we did in the latter half of the contest."

The Rangers defeated the Hardrockers, 25-14, 24-22, 23-25, 25-22. SD Mines collected 39 kills in the match and was 133-150 on the attack and added 36 assists, 69 digs and 11 blocks. Regis went 135-167 on the attack with 63 kills, 61 assists, 77 digs and seven total blocks.

"We knew coming in that Regis' Katie Klein is a very talented player. The same is true of Maggie Steward and Kelsey Green," Tabbert said. "They are big components of their offense and limiting their effectiveness was going to be very important for us. We did a solid job on Steward and Green but Katie Klein showed why she is a first-team all-conference player (23 kills). She was very impressive and a lot for us to deal with."

Individually for the Hardrockers, freshman Caryn Hazard posted 10 kills and was 36-47 on the attack while fellow freshman Hannah Stevenson added eight kills and was 19-20 on the attack and sophomore Anna Breidt contributed with eight kills and was 30-34 on the attack.

SD Mines freshman Allie Boggs collected 25 assists in the match and sophomore Darla Drenckhahn came up with 16 digs to lead the team. Breidt also had seven blocks and Stevenson had four in the match.

"We got a number of significant contributions from a number of players. Elizabeth Jensen gave us some stability when we put her in the libero spot, Darla led us in digs, Anna had a big role in helping us get double-digit blocks against a potent offensive team, Caryn anchored our serve receive and Hannah had a breakout match from an offensive standpoint," Tabbert said.  "All of those things are facets of the match that we can hopefully build off of as we prep for the big match next week."

The loss drops SD Mines to 1-18 on the season and will next travel to Spearfish Tuesday to face Black Hills State in a 7 p.m. match.