The Lady Miners' hope of overtaking Lewis for first place in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Saturday was denied by the 21st-ranked Flyers, as the visitors swept a pair from Missouri S&T by scores of 4-3 and 6-2 at the S&T Softball Field.

With the victories, Lewis remains undefeated in GLVC play -- with doubleheader sweeps over both S&T and defending national champion SIU Edwardsville already on the docket -- while the Lady Miners drop to 18-13 overall and 9-3 in conference play.

The Flyers took advantage of S&T mistakes to get the lead in both games, but had to hold off a rally effort by the Lady Miners in the nightcap that had the sizable crowd on hand on the edge of their seats.

A two-out error in the third inning of game one allowed Lewis' All-America shortstop, Kelly Dianis, to bat and she delivered a two-run double to the fence to put the Flyers in front.

Katie Smith hit a two-out homer in the fourth to cut the lead in half, then S&T loaded the bases on consecutive hits by Coley Naughton, Becky Davis and Melissa Ruth. However, Kandi Wieberg flied out to end that threat and Lewis scored two more runs in the fifth on another RBI hit by Dianis and a squeeze bunt that scored Carla Musillo to go up 4-1.

Aside from the Smith homer in the fourth, Diana Pickrum kept the Lady Miners off the scoreboard until the seventh when S&T got a rally started with a leadoff walk to Wieberg. Rachel Wilkinson followed with a hit and Kelsey Musselman singled to right center to bring in Wieberg and bring about a pitching change.

Julie Wingerter entered the game for Pickrum but struggled with her control, walking Emily Tucker to load the bases and then throwing a wild pitch to score Wilkinson. Following the wild pitch, Wingerter was replaced by Courtney Lyons, who proceeded to walk Kristen Drage to load the bases again.

But moments later, Lyons helped herself get out of the jam by spearing a liner off Smith's bat and turning it into a double play, then got Naughton to foul out to third to end the game.

The Lady Miners had 10 hits in the opener, with Wilkinson and Smith getting two apiece. Jen O'Hara took the loss for S&T.

In game two, another early error allowed Lewis to get the lead in the early innings. With runners on second and third and one out, Kayla Smith lined out to short for the second out, but a throw to third to try and double off the runner was wild and allowed Lisa Gartland to score.

The Flyers followed that by putting three runs on the board off S&T starter Ashley Wallingford in the fourth, as Carissa Castonzo's two-run double made it 3-0 and a hit by Gartland brought in the third run of the inning.

S&T trimmed that lead in half when Naughton delivered with a two-out, two-run in the bottom of the fourth, but the Flyers kept the Lady Miners at bay with home runs off the bats of Kayla Smith to lead off the fifth and Castonzo to start off the sixth.

Naughton had two of S&T's five hits in game two.