MOORHEAD, Minn. - The Minnesota State University Moorhead Dragons suffered their third loss in conference play on Friday night as the Southwest Minnesota State Mustangs took the match 3-0 (25-10, 25-18, 25-20).

Both teams went into the game with 13-5 overall records but SMSU was the team that came out with the win as they took the first set handily, moving fast to a 25-13 win.

After trailing 3-0 in the second set, the Dragons came back to take the lead 9-6 on four straight points served by Mary Sussenguth, which included one service ace. It was one of two that she had in the match. The Mustangs came back to tie the set at 12 and the Dragons were plagued by attack errors that caused corruption in the teams-runs that gave them the second set loss.

The Dragons were down by more than three points two-separate times in the third set in which they came back to tie the score until it was a back-and-forth battle mid-way through. The Mustangs stepped up their game to go ahead 23-18 and could not be shaken as they took the match.

SMSU's Mary Groth led all attackers with 15 kills and was followed by Devin Diedrich with 11. Cara Carson, the Mustangs setter, had 40 assists in the match.

MSUM was lead by Heidi Lensing, who had nine kills in 20 attempts. Laura Tvrdik had seven kills in the match while both Kristen Kleven and Ashley Pyfferoen had four. Leigh Splittstoesser had 23 assists in the game and one service ace.

The Dragons will host Minnesota State University Mankato on Saturday in Alex Nemzek Fieldhouse at 4 p.m.