SPEARFISH - Black Hills State jumped to a quick lead in Game 1 and rode the emotion of that early momentum to a 25-13, 25-17, 25-17 sweep of the visiting South Dakota School of Mines & Technology volleyball team Wednesday night at the Young Center in Spearfish.

Black Hills State (16-9 overall, 6-1 Dakota Athletic Conference) was up 10-0 almost before the sound of the opening whistle had died away largely due to excellent serving by senior Mandy Brumfield and some rather shaky service return work by the Hardrockers.

"We served very well tonight," Black Hills State's senior libero Carina Sweet said. "It really helped us to jump up 10-0 right at the start. That kind of helped us push through the rest of the game and carried us through the match really. We struggled a little bit early with our own service return, but we got it corrected and got better as we went along."

When Mines (7-12, 4-3) was able to return serve and set up its attack, the Yellow Jacket front line of Kristin Engle, who had a team-leading seven blocks, sister Kalin, freshman Kylee Lamb and Maggie O'Neill were there with smothering blocks.

"We certainly served well tonight," BHSU head coach Jhett Albers said. "That helped us to get out of the chute, but I thought equally important was that when they were able to pass up, we blocked very well, so that made it very difficult for them to get into any kind of offensive rhythm."

Service miscues also were instrumental in determining the outcome of the second game. Unfortunately for the Hardrockers, the mistakes this time came on the serving rather than the receiving end. A costly series of service errors again buried Mines in a hole too deep from which to recover.

"Serve and serve-receive is something that we talked about coming in," Hardrocker head coach Tiffany Mastin-McCampbell said. "That part of our game has been very good for us lately, and then tonight we did not do well in either area."

The Lady Hardrockers battled hard in the third gameb drawing even at 13-13 before Black Hills pulled away behind some booming kills by Kristin Engle, who finished with eight on the night, and O'Neill's seven. Brumfield, in addition to her dynamic early serving, also led the Yellow Jackets in assists with 23.

For the hard luck visitors, who came into the match having won six of their past eight matches, the totals reflected the one-sided nature of Wednesday's game. Sophomore Becky Keilhotz led the team with eight blocks and four kills, while Madisen Lane led the team in kills with five. Catherine Hanson had 10 digs.

"This game is a nice way for us to go into the midseason conference break," Albers said.