Final Stats

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Missouri State logged its third-best hitting efficiency of the season Friday evening at the Knapp Center to earn a 3-0 (25-21, 25-23, 25-12) Missouri Valley Conference victory over the Drake Bulldogs.

Lily Johnson led the Bears (13-5, 4-1 MVC) with 22 kills, the most for an MSU player in a three-setter since 2007, while Simone House hit .588 with 11 kills and Kinsey Batten handed out 47 assists. Drake fell to 12-11 and 3-3 in league play.

The first set was tied at each point to 5-5 before the Bears began to slowly pull away. Batten blocks gave MSU leads of 9-6 and 11-7, and Johnson's seventh kill put the Bears up 21-14. After House made it 23-15, Drake fired off a 5-0 run to make it close, but 19 kills and 30 digs from Missouri State proved too much for the Bulldogs.

Missouri State jumped ahead 10-4 in the second set, but Drake slowly crawled back to tie the score at 17-all and eventually took its first lead of the frame with a kill for 20-19. MSU scored the next two points to regain the upper hand, and used back-to-back kills from Ashley Ophoven and Johnson to lead 23-21. Johnson accounted for MSU's final three kills as the Bears earned the two-point win.

Three aces from freshman MacKenzie Irwin and three more Johnson kills made up most of a 7-0 MSU run for a 7-1 lead in the third set, and the Bears led by at least five points the rest of the period as they hit .552 with 17 kills and one error on 29 attempts to complete the sweep.

The Bears ended the match with a .333 attack efficiency compared to .172 for the Bulldogs, and owned advantages of 52-36 in kills, 66-49 in digs, and 6-5 in blocks.

Irwin served all four of MSU's aces in her first career start, while Emily Butters (18), Tatum Marshall (13), Johnson (12) and Elise Munroe (11) all reached double figures in digs. House led the Bears with three blocks, while Ophoven added eight kills.

The Bears play at UNI (9-10, 3-3) at 7 p.m. Saturday. The Panthers lost 3-0 to Wichita State on Friday.