NORMAL, Ill. -- Missouri State seemed poised to hand Illinois State its first Missouri Valley Conference loss of the season Friday, but the Redbirds overcame a 2-0 deficit for the five-set victory at Redbird Arena. Set scores in favor of ISU were 21-25, 24-26, 25-17, 25-22, 15-9.
Missouri State fell to 18-11 overall and 11-6 in league play, locking in the No. 4 seed in next week's MVC Volleyball Championship in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Bears will play either Southern Illinois or Indiana State at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 27. The Redbirds improved to 23-5 and 17-0 in MVC play with their 19th consecutive win.
In what was MSU's school-record 10th five-set match of the season, the Bears got out to a 2-0 lead thanks in large part to a pair of strong finishes in the first two sets. After a lead in the first set was nearly erased on multiple occasions, MSU pulled away from a 21-20 score with an ISU service error and kills from
Lauren Boone and
Lily Johnson for the 24-20 advantage.
Then in the second set, a 3-0 run culminated by a block by
Lynsey Wright and
Olivia Brand, gave the Bears an 18-17 lead, and kills by Johnson earned set point chances at 24-23 and 25-24 before ISU missed an attack to hand MSU the 26-24 win.
The final three sets all included fast Illinois State starts that were too much for the Bears to overcome. ISU led 7-2 in the third, 16-6 in the fourth and 5-1 in the fifth, though Missouri State did briefly take an 8-7 lead in the final period. After that, a Brand kill for a 10-9 deficit was MSU's only score as the Redbirds closed the match on an 8-1 run.
The match was a defensive struggle for much of the night as the MVC's top-two offensive teams each failed to hit .200, with the Redbirds finishing at .194 and the Bears posting a .128 attack efficiency. The clubs combined for 237 digs, with MSU's total of 118 marking the highest single-match output since 2006.
Six Bears recorded at least 10 digs in the match, with Johnson and
Maddy Hogan sharing high honors with 23 apiece.
Tatum Marshall added a career-high 20 to mark the first time since 2007 that three Bears reached that total in a match.
Brand finished with 18 kills to move past the 1,100 mark for her career, Johnson added 15 to move to 14th on the MSU single-season list, and Wright had 10 on .333 hitting. Boone nearly had a triple-double with eight kills along with career highs of 18 assists and 11 digs.
The Bears close the regular season Saturday at 6 p.m. at Indiana State (17-12, 9-8). The Sycamores lost 3-0 to Wichita State on Friday.
