The Missouri State volleyball team earned its fourth Missouri Valley Conference regular season championship in 2016, winning its final 16 matches on the way to a 25-7 overall record and 16-2 mark in league play.
   The Bears look to carry that momentum into the MVC Volleyball Championship this week in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Nov. 24-26. MSU begins play Friday at 5 p.m. against the winner of Thursday's contest between fourth-seeded Southern Illinois and No. 5 Illinois State. The championship match takes place Saturday at 4 p.m. The other half of the bracket includes No. 2 Wichita State, No. 3 UNI and No. 6 Loyola.
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Championship History
Missouri State has appeared in seven of the last 15 MVC Tournament finals. MSU is 28-27 in the tournament with titles coming in 1990, 1993, 2005 and 2008. The Bears were runner-up in 2015 after losing 18-16 to Wichita State in the fifth set for the longest title match in league history.
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Last Week
The Bears earned its fourth MVC regular season title with a Friday sweep at Evansville, and secured the outright championship Saturday with a 3-2 win at Southern Illinois. Against UE,
Lynsey Wright hit .440 with 15 kills, and
Simone House hit .588 with 10 kills. Saturday, the Bears won the first two sets before SIU battled back all the way to a 13-11 lead in the fifth before MSU closed the match on a 4-0 run.
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