EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Missouri State senior Maddy Bushnell hit .393 with a season-high 16 kills and classmate Morgan Sprague had 44 assists and 21 digs, but Evansville's Giulia Cardona piled up 30 kills of her own to lead the Purple Aces to a 3-1 (25-13, 24-26, 27-25, 25-22) victory over the Bears at Meeks Family Fieldhouse.
 
The Bears fell to 8-13 overall and 2-7 in league play at the midpoint of the Missouri Valley Conference schedule, while UE improved to 4-16 and 3-5 in MVC matches.
 
The opening set was tied eight times to 11-11 when the Purple Aces pulled away with a 14-2 closing run to take the lead.
 
The teams split the next two sets, both in extra time, beginning with a wild ending to the second. MoState led 20-14 when Evansville used a 5-0 run to get to 20-19 and later served an ace for set point at 24-23. Bushnell answered with the tying kill and freshman Lexi Weinberg added two more for the win. Weinberg finished the match with nine kills on .333 hitting.
 
The third set mirrored the second, this time with the home team building a big lead at 17-10 that it maintained to 24-20. From there, the Bears went on a 5-0 run to lead 25-24 before Cardona hit consecutive kills and MoState sent an attack wide to hand UE the 27-25 victory.
 
The Bears did not lead in the fourth set, but nevertheless rallied from a 21-14 deficit with a 4-0 run that included two aces from Riley Ourth. Evansville got to match point at 24-18 when the Bears rattled off another 4-0 run before UE ended the match with a kill.
 
Evansville hit .271 compared to .215 for the Bears and owned a 56-54 lead in kills. Aniya Joseph had 13 kills on .278 hitting for MoState, and Brooke Eslinger (14) and Kate Owen (10) joined Sprague with double-figure dig totals.
 
Missouri State will play seven of its final nine regular season matches at home, beginning Oct. 25 with a 6 p.m. contest against Murray State at Hammons Student Center.