The Missouri Baptist Spartans cut their run in the NAIA Conference Tournament short tonight with a loss against the Missouri Valley College Vikings in the semi-finals.  The Vikings fought abck after being down 0-2 in the match, winning the following three sets to defeat the Spartans 2-3.

The Spartans gained control in the match early.  MBU won set one handedly, 25-11.  The second set, once again, Missouri Baptist jumped to an early lead.  The Vikings stayed closer this set, yet the Spartans still defeated the Vikings with dominating force with a 25-15 win.

The third set is where things began to turn south for the Spartans.  MBU was up 14-2 in set three before allowing the Vikings to gain momentum on a large run.  Tied at 17, both teams played point for point.  A Spartan service error allowed Missouri Valley to have set point 23-24.  A Missouri Baptist attacking error gave the Vikinigs their first set win of the night.

In set four, the Vikings managed to pull out another win.  The Spartans never took the lead at any point in this set.  At 24, however, it was a tied game.  Missouri Valley's back-to-back kills allowed the Vikings to defeat the Spartans 26-24.  Both teams were tied at two sets a piece, forcing the fifth deciding set.

The fifth set saw the same results as the previous two sets.  The Vikings got an early jump on the Spartans and they never looked back.  Missouri Valley pulled off the upset-comeback win over Missouri Baptist with a 12-15 fifth set win.

Once again, the Spartan offense was led by Mico Janicjevic.  The freshman tallied 14 kills, along with three sercive aces.  Senior Clayton Baker added 10 kills of his own.  Libero Danny Gruszczyk led the Spartan defense with 12 digs.  With tonight's loss, the Spartans fall to 21-8 for the season.