SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The No. 7 SMSU volleyball team fought a tough battle on day one of the Drury Invitational, earning a 3-1 victory over Drury (Mo.) at the O’Reilly Family Event Center on Thursday evening.

SMSU improves to 5-0 on the year while Drury drops to 3-2.

Emma VanHeel logged a stellar performance collecting a match-high 15 kills on .583 hitting to lead the SMSU offense. Saari Kuehl added 11 kills, an assist and eight digs, while Karli Arkell swung for nine kills on .320 hitting. Sydney Thein paced the offense with her fourth double-double in five matches, logging 39 assists and 13 digs. Five Mustangs collected double-digit digs with McKenzie Tolk collecting a team-high 14. Freshman Kennedy Drake also logged 12 digs.

Ashley Peltier, Arkell, and VanHeel each contributed solo blocks to hold the line.

Lauren Tyler posted 10 kills with 28 assists, while Kyla Clubb recorded 11 kills to lead the Panthers offense. Drury logged 13 blocks on defense to the Mustangs’ seven.

Set one saw back-and-forth play through the first 14 points, leading to a 7-7 tie before the Mustangs rattled off four straight points to force a DU timeout. The Panthers snagged three consecutive points out of the timeout but back-to-back kills from Saari Kuehl got the Mustangs back on track. A 5-3 Drury run saw the Panthers capture the lead before a big block from Ashley Peltier and an ace from McKenzie Tolk gave SMSU the lead once again. Back-to-back points for DU forced another SMSU timeout, which allowed the Mustangs to reset and hit hard with a 7-4 run to win the set 25-23.

Drury came out swinging in the second set to take an early 7-3 lead. SMSU reset and came back with a 5-2 run sparked by kills from Saari Kuehl and Emma VanHeel cut the deficit to one point. The remainder of the second set went the way of the Panthers, as they limited SMSU to just .054 hitting while posting .152 hitting with four aces.

The Panthers carried their momentum over into set three, jumping out to a 9-3 lead thanks to seven Mustang errors in the early going. SMSU eventually battled back to a three point deficit at 18-15 after three combined kills from VanHeel and Thein. DU scored another point to go up 19-16. However, the Mustangs would not go away, as Karli Arkell turned up the heat with four kills and a pair of blocks to carry the Mustangs to a 9-1 run to close the set and take a 2-1 lead.

The teams traded the first six points of the fourth set to come to a 3-3 tie before the Mustangs used a pair of kills from VanHeel and an ace from Kennedy Drake to jump out to an 8-3 lead. Coming out of a timeout, Drury would score four of the next six points before SMSU countered by scoring the next four points to sustain a seven-point lead. The Panthers battled back to a one point deficit at 18-17 before the Mustangs retook control of the match and scored seven of the final nine points to close out the match.

The Mustangs finished the match with 49 kills on .135 hitting while the Panthers recorded 41 kills on .080 hitting.

SMSU is back in action with two matches tomorrow, facing off with Rockhurst (Mo.) at 11 a.m. before playing Southern Nazarene (Okla.) at 7 p.m.