SPRINGFIELD – Missouri State's volleyball season came to a sudden end Wednesday with a 3-2 loss to Southern Illinois at Hammons Student Center.

The Bears entered the match needing either a win or Bradley loss at Illinois State to continue their season at the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament on Sunday but got neither, as the Braves won 3-1 at ISU and the Salukis escaped with a 3-2 (25-20, 25-19, 23-25, 13-25, 15-5) victory.

Missouri State ends the year with a 9-21 overall record and 6-12 mark in MVC play, though seven of the league losses came in five sets.

After 12 ties to an 18-18 score in the opening set, the Salukis (18-12, 11-7) went on a 4-0 run to secure the victory, then piled up 17 kills in the second period for a 2-0 lead.

The third set featured 16 ties and nine lead changes, the last two of each during 5-0 runs for each team. SIU went up 20-17 and the Bears responded to lead 23-21 before siding out with kills from Morgan Sprague and Deja Bickers for the win.

The Bears dominated the fourth set with four blocks and four aces in addition to hitting .286 with 12 kills, but the Salukis quickly stole the momentum in the fifth, never trailing and hitting .429 with 10 kills for the win.

Bickers led MSU with 17 kills, freshman Lucca Dunser had a match-high 19 digs, and Katie Wemhoener served four aces. Azyah Green and Lindsay Lahr tallied five blocks each. SIU out-hit the Bears .245-.145 with 11 more kills, but MSU had more digs (62-59), aces (10-6) and blocks (10-5).

End of season notes: The Bears ended the season with 26 more points than the opposition in conference matches despite the 6-12 conference record…Manuela Ibarguen completed her final season with 15 double-doubles and six matches with 20 or more kills. She is the seventh player in MSU history with that many 20-kill matches in a season, and her four consecutive such matches from Oct. 1-14 were a first at Missouri State since 1997…Azyah Green completed the year ranked eighth in school history with 464 total blocks. She is the first Bear since Mindy Struckhoff (1985-88) to lead the team in blocking four consecutive seasons, and first since Calli Norman (2008-11) with at least 100 blocks in four consecutive seasons…Lindsay Lahr became the first MVC player since at least 2007 with six aces and six blocks in a match on Oct. 14 against Murray State…Morgan Sprague completed her sophomore season ranked 11th in MSU history with 2,113 career assists…The Bears finished the year with a 1.61 assists per set average, the program's highest since 1995.