SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The Drake University volleyball team gave everything it had to Illinois State in the semifinal round of the Missouri Valley Conference Volleyball Tournament before falling to the Redbirds, 3-0.

Drake entered the tournament at the sixth and final seed and fell to No. 2 seed Illinois State by set scores of 25-23, 25-22, 27-25.

Cathryn Cheek (Coppell, Texas) led Drake again with 14 kills and 17 digs to finish her career with 17-straight games with double figure kills. Natalie Fry (Allen, Texas) registered a career-high 14 kills on 23 attempts with no errors to hit .609. Cheek finished the season with 417 kills, the seventh most in a season by a Bulldog.

The victorious Redbirds (25-6) were paced by 16 kills from Kaylee Martin as the team hit .224.

The Bulldogs closed their season with a 21-14 overall record for the team's second-straight 20 win season and second-consecutive appearance in the MVC Tournament. In advancing to the MVC Tournament semifinals, the Bulldogs became the first No. 6 seed in the MVC Tournament to advance to the semifinals and also earned the program's first tournament win since 1998 with a 3-2 win over Bradley.

Drake pulled away late in the first set with a 23-20 lead off of three state Redbird errors. However, ISU regrouped and went on a 5-0 run by forcing three Bulldog errors to rally for the 25-23 win to open the match despite seven early kills from Cheek.

The Bulldogs took an early lead to open the second set at 9-6, but an 8-0 ISU run quickly followed as Drake employed both of its timeouts to try to slow the Redbirds' momentum. With that six-point advantage in tow, ISU was able to prevent the Bulldogs from clawing back into the lead despite Drake pulling within two points four times. The Redbirds held Drake to just .078 hitting in the set to prevail, 25-22, and a 2-0 advantage in the match.

Drake fell behind early in the third set, but rallied to tie the set four times, including at 22-22, before briefly pulling ahead at 23-22 as the Bulldogs fought to extend their season through extremely clean play. The Bulldogs committed just two errors in the set and hit .326, but could not put the Redbirds away with two set points as Illinois State escaped the set, 27-25, to advance to the MVC Tournament Championship game and end Drake's season.