RAPID CITY, S.D. --- The South Dakota School of Mines women's volleyball team nearly ended the year with a bang taking the University of Colorado Colorado Springs to five sets during the final game of the regular season Saturday night at the King Center in Rapid City.
 
But despite an exceptional effort from the Hardrockers, the visiting Mountain Lions overcame down the stretch to win the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference match, 3-2.
 
"We didn't get off to a great start, but we finished the first set with some momentum. We carried that into the second set and played much better," said Hardrocker volleyball head coach Doug Tabbert. "The way we competed in the fourth set was very encouraging. To overcome the deficits that we faced multiple times during that set showed a lot competitiveness on the part of our team. Our youth and inexperience showed up in the fifth. We seemed to tighten up after our early lead vanished and we couldn't get anything going the rest of the way, unfortunately. Despite how the fifth set played out, it was a fun match to be a part of and the effort from our team against a team that is tied for third in our conference was certainly present."

UCCS defeated SD Mines, 25-17, 22-25, 25-17, 24-26, 15-7. The Hardrockers finished with 58 kills and was 141-167 on the attack. The home team tacked on 50 assists, 70 digs and recorded a season high 19 blocks. The Mountain Lions countered with 58 kills and was 146-173 on the attack, had 52 assists, 76 digs and 11 blocks.
 
Individually for the Hardrockers, junior Emily Newton had a solid night with 13 kills and was 21-26 on the attack and tallied seven blocks. Sophomore Anna Breidt had 12 kills and was 29-31 on the attack with six digs and two blocks. Freshman Caryn Hazard contributed with nine kills and fellow freshman Hannah Stevenson added eight kills and seven blocks.
 
"One of our priorities was to limit the effectiveness of Brinton as an attacker. She is a quality player and capable of doing plenty of damage offensively. She ended up hitting negative in the match, so we did a quality job against her," Tabbert said. "Hannah deserves a lot of credit for that. We matched her up against Brinton as much as we could and she responded by being a part of eight blocks. That was huge. We also did a much better job of getting them out of system during the match. We absolutely could not do that when we played them at their place, so we certainly improved in that facet. As we have come to expect, we got a nice offensive effort from both of our middles—some of which can be attributed to better serve receive play compared to when we played them in Colorado Springs. A little more offensive balance would have served us well but we didn't quite have it."

Hardrocker sophomore Elizabeth Jensen tallied 37 of her team's 50 assists and freshman Makinze Maiden collected 25 digs in the match.

"A competitive match to conclude the season can send you into the spring season with some incentive, and I think tonight's match fits that description despite the outcome.  Our players can feel good about numerous things that occurred tonight,' Tabbet added.

SD Mines ends the season with a 1-28 overall record and 0-18 showing in the RMAC.