SIUC women’s volleyball coach Sonya Locke was not surprised to see her team advance to the semi-finals in this year’s State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, in fact she expected it.

SIUC was the No. 5 seed heading into the tournament, held last week in Normal, at Redbird Arena. However, the spikers ousted No. 4 seed Southwest Missouri State University in the opening round in three games, 15-2, 15-7 and 15-11 to advance to semi-final action against the University of Northern Iowa.

Locke said she had every intention of making it to the second round of the tournament.

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I expected to get to the second round, she said. I knew we could beat them (Southwest Missouri State), and we did.

I’m happy we achieved a short term goal, but it wasn’t really a surprise. I knew we could do it.

The spikers, led by freshman outside hitter Marlo Moreland’s team-high 10 kills, had a hitting percentage of .421 in game one and .400 in game two. SIUC built leads of 11-0 in game one, 10-5 in game two and 9-1 in game three.

We really didn’t have to do anything, they beat themselves, Locke said. I can honestly say we were confident that we could win. It wasn’t a surprise because I expected it.

The last time the Salukis beat Southwest Missouri State in a conference tournament match was 1982 when Locke was a member of the Saluki squad. Locke was named the most valuable player of that tournament.

The Salukis tied for third place in the tournament with Illinois State. The Redbirds defeated Bradley in their opening match before suffering a loss to Drake University in semi-final action.

The Salukis fell to the University of Northern Iowa in the semi-finals 15-5, 15-6 and 15-5. The Panthers then went on to defeat Drake University in the championship match to finish first place in the tournament, and the season. The tournament win gave the Panthers their second straight MVC championship.

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The Panthers continued their season after defeating Mid-Continent Conference champion Valparaiso in the NCAA Tournament play-in contest Saturday in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The two conference champions met to decide who will advance to the NCAA tournament. Nothern Iowa will host Colorado in opening round action Wednesday.

At 17-12, the Salukis finish the season in fifth place in the MVC. SIUC was picked to finish in the No. 6 spot in the preseason coaches poll, behind Bradley and Southwest Missouri State. Drake receives second place honors and SMSU ends its season tied for third place with Illinois State. Bradley finished its season in the No. 6 spot.

Locke said the preseason pick was what kept the Salukis hungry enough to end the season with a higher finish than what was predicted in the poll.

All that stuff with the preseason coaches poll fueled our fire, she said. Sure, we could have gone into the tournament with a higher seed, had we won a couple more matches, but I’m very happy with how we did.