The Missouri State volleyball earned its first win over a ranked opponent in four years with an impressive 3-1 victory over previously unbeaten No. 25 Middle Tennessee State Sunday afternoon inside Alumni Memorial Gym in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

With their fourth victory in a row, the Bears improved to 9-2 on the season after game scores of 30-24, 30-23, 26-30 and 30-23. The 25th-ranked Blue Raiders fell to 10-1 after jumping out to the best start in school history.

Missouri State gained a 2-0 lead but saw some of its momentum slip away when MTSU won the third game. The Bears responded immediately in game four by taking a 3-0 lead after two of Jamie Adams’ 17 kills and an ace from Cara Hackmann. The Blue Raiders took leads of 5-4 and 6-5 before the Bears grabbed the advantage for good at 8-7 and led by as much as eight at 24-16. Adams provided seven total kills in the deciding game, and the Bears hit .400 in game four and .270 for the contest.

Senior Sara Thomas turned in a career-best 20 kills and did much of her damage early on. She had six kills in each of the first two games and was hitting .550 entering the intermission before finishing with a very solid .405 hitting percentage and adding a season-high eight assists.

Sara Staubach added 12 kills and Hackmann posted a season-high 10 kills on .421 hitting to make four Bears with double figure kill totals.

Defensively, Hackmann led the team with 14 digs, while the front row players combined to block 14 Middle Tennessee attacks, led by six apiece from Staubach and Shayla Patrick and five from Hackmann.

MSU also had a season-high 10 service aces, with four coming off the arm of Terri Del Conte.

The talented Blue Raiders had three players reach the 10-kill plateau and finished the match with 15.5 blocks, but were limited to just a pair of aces by the Bear defense.

The Bears return home to open conference play with two matches at Hammons Student Center this weekend. MSU plays preseason league favorite UNI at 7 p.m. Friday and Bradley at 7 p.m. Saturday.