WICHITA, Kan. -- The Missouri State offense struggled for most of the night Friday as the Bears were swept at Wichita State by scores of 25-14, 25-15 and 25-20 in Missouri Valley Conference volleyball action.

    The Bears fell to 15-6 overall and 8-2 in the league, while the Shockers climbed to 16-4 and 7-3 in MVC matches.

    Missouri State hit .035 through two sets before hitting .250 in the third to finish at .109 for the match, the team’s lowest hitting percentage of the season.

    The Shockers took control early, using four straight kills followed by a pair of MSU attack errors to take a 10-4 lead. The Bears steadied the set briefly before WSU ripped off a 3-0 run to force MSU’s second timeout with a 15-7 advantage. Missouri State got no closer than five points the rest of the way as the WSU defense was stout in holding the Bears to seven kills and .047 hitting.

    Missouri State took a 5-3 lead in the second set only to see the Shockers get two kills and use three MSU errors to go ahead 8-5. The teams began trading points after that to a 12-10 score when WSU went on an 8-0 run to double-up the Bears at 20-10. The offense continued to struggle, managing only eight kills and hitting .024 in the second set.

    The third set was no better for the Bears as WSU bolted to a 11-2 lead. Missouri State responded with an 8-2 run that included six kills, and the teams traded sideouts to a 15-12 score before Addie Foley slammed a kill to cut the Shocker lead to two points. The Shockers scored two in a row after holding a 16-14 lead, forcing the Bears to call timeout.

    WSU scored the next point out of the stoppage to go up 19-14, but Calli Norman answered with two kills and Foley added a third to cut the deficit back to 19-17. Norman and the Shockers traded two kills each before WSU scored two in a row to go ahead 23-19 on the way to the win.

    Norman finished the match with 11 kills on .381 hitting, but no other Bear had more than seven. Cara Hackmann had 22 digs to move to ninth on MSU’s career list and eighth on the season list.

    The Shockers hit .289 for the match and out-blocked Missouri State 6-5. Emily Stockman had 16 kills, 18 digs and hit .368, and Sarah McGee had 14 kills without an error and hit .583.

    The Bears travel to Fort Wayne, Ind., Sunday for a non-conference tilt with IPFW (13-9, 7-5 Summit League).