After an early season loss to the Salukis, the Lady Bears of Southwest Missouri State sought revenge against the SIUC volleyball team on Sunday and they got it.

The Lady Bears mauled the Salukis in five games, 15-3, 15-9, 9-15 and 15-4, to take over sole possession of third place in the Missouri Valley Conference. The Salukis, now 10-4 in the Valley and 12-8 overall, fall to fourth place in the league standings.

The Salukis managed a mere .125 hitting percentage compared to SMSU’s .220. Once again, service errors plagued the spikers. SIUC had a total of 13 service errors in the match.

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SIUC coach Sonya Locke attributes SIUC’s serving mistakes to a lack of control.

You can never be too aggressive at anything you do, Locke said. It’s all a matter of controlling what you do. We did not have control on Sunday.

With six matches remaining in the regular season, Locke said the spikers are not going to settle with winning less than all of their games.

Right now, we are looking to win every single match, Locke said. Last year we pressured ourselves into looking at winning only certain matches. We are not going to do that this year. We are going after every single match.

The two teams with the best record in conference play will get a bye in the first round of this year’s six-team tournament. Locke said she would like the spikers to finish the season as high as possible.

SIUC faces Northern Iowa and Drake this weekend. Northern Iowa, whose record remains untarnished in league action, stands alone on top of the MVC. Drake, on the other hand, fell to Bradley on Saturday in Des Moines. SIUC beat Bradley earlier in the season.

Locke said she feels that Bradley and ISU are going to be SIUC’s toughest obstacles to overcome, not Drake and Northern Iowa.

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I don’t think Northern Iowa or Drake are going to be the toughest teams to beat, she said. I believe Bradley and ISU will be the toughest because they are on the road.

SIUC faces Saint Louis University on Wednesday in a non-conference match before hosting Northern Iowa and Drake on Friday and Saturday.