The University of Illinois Springfield volleyball team gave No. 25 Missouri-St. Louis a scare on Saturday afternoon in Springfield, Ill, but the Tritons survived in five sets. The match scores were 25-19, 25-20, 19-25, 19-25, and 15-13.

UIS fought back from a 2-0 deficit to force a fifth set. In the final, the Prairie Stars trailed 12-9, but fought back to tie the game at 12-12 and 13-13. An attack error by UIS gave Missouri-St. Louis match point, and it was able to record a kill on that point to win the match.

UIS had better team statistics in the match, having 20 blocks and 87 digs, compared to seven blocks and 75 digs for the Tritons. Offensive, UIS hit .217 and had 66 kills, and Missouri-St. Louis had 60 kills and a .178 hitting mark.

Defensively, Alli Splitt set a program record with 15 blocks in the match. She had one solo block and 14 assisted blocks, breaking the previous single-match record by one. Jailyn Borum had seven blocks, and Brianna Bush, Hannah Nicolaisen, and Becca Blakeley each had five. Jenny Rush led the team with 25 digs. Borum had 19, Rachel Cobert and Nicolaisen each had 15, and Blakeley had 11.

Offensively, five Prairie Stars were in double-figure kills, led by Splitt with 20. Bush ended with 15, Nicolaisen had 11, and Cobert and Borum each had 10. Blakeley finished with 55 assists.

UIS falls to 14-10 on the year and 5-4 in GLVC play. The Prairie Stars step out of conference play on Thursday with a non-conference road match at Purdue Northwest.