Springfield Standard

Missouri State University’s volleyball team will participate in the first Missouri Challenge, facing three in-state rivals at Chaifetz Pavilion in St. Louis. The Bears are scheduled to play Saint Louis University on Thursday, Southeast Missouri State (SEMO) on Friday, and Kansas City on Saturday.

The event brings together four teams from Missouri for a round-robin competition. Missouri State enters the week with a 4-4 record and has historically performed well against other programs from the state, holding a 153-16-3 all-time record against fellow Missouri schools. This season, the Bears already secured a win over Lindenwood.

Missouri State holds an advantage in its series with this week’s opponents but faces recent challenges. The Bears lead Saint Louis 21-3 all-time but lost their last two meetings with the Billikens in 2022 and 2024. Against SEMO, MSU is ahead 20-2 and won their most recent match last year; they have not lost to SEMO since 2000. In matches against Kansas City, the Bears are up 23-1-1, though Kansas City won their first game against MSU last year.

This season marks Missouri State’s final year before joining Conference USA after spending 33 seasons in the Missouri Valley Conference, where they achieved a .652 winning percentage during that time.

The current roster is notably young, featuring seven freshmen and six sophomores among its 18 members. All seven players from Missouri come from within a short distance of campus.

Freshmen have contributed significantly to the team’s offense so far this season, accounting for more than half of total kills. Peyton McKee leads with 77 kills and was named CUSA Freshman of the Week on September 8. Hannah Gardner has recorded both kills and assists and became the first freshman at MSU to achieve a triple-double during a match earlier this month.

Defensively, MSU has ranked among the nation’s top teams for total digs over several seasons—finishing as high as fourth nationally in 2024—and also placed highly for dig average that same year.

The team has also been strong at serving aces under head coach Steven McRoberts, achieving top five averages each season since adopting the current scoring format.

Head coach Steven McRoberts is now in his sixth season leading MSU and his 29th overall as a collegiate head coach, accumulating 661 career victories—ninth among active Division I coaches nationwide. He previously coached at Tulsa in Conference USA, earning multiple league titles and Coach of the Year honors there.

Assistant coach Lori Endicott-Vandersnick joined MSU this year after representing Team USA as a setter at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where she helped secure a bronze medal and was recognized as best setter of those Games.