WICHITA FALLS, Texas (November 8, 2025) – Playing against a team one spot above the Falcons in the Lone Star Conference standings with only three games remaining in the regular season, The University of Texas Permian Basin could not take advantage of the opportunity and instead fell 3-0 (25-16, 25-16, 25-10) at Midwestern State University.

With the loss, UTPB (9-16 overall, 7-8 LSC) drops below .500 in conference play for the first time all season. In addition, it was UTPB's first loss against Midwestern State (16-9, 9-7) since 2017, ending a streak of eight straight sweeps against the Mustangs. Each of the last 12 matches between UTPB and MSU have been decided in straight sets.

The Falcons had alternated wins and losses in nine straight matches before dropping their final two road matches of the season this weekend.

UTPB remains in 10th place in the LSC standings and is two games behind eighth-place Oklahoma Christian University (17-9, 9-6). Unfortunately, with today's loss, the Falcons are officially eliminated from postseason contention.

In the first set against the Mustangs, UTPB cut its deficit to one point (16-15) after a 4-0 run featuring a kill by Ashlee Macias, an ace by Emma Gonzalez, and back-to-back kills by Lauren Demuth and Makenna Grimes. However, MSU answered with a bigger 7-0 run that started with three straight kills and ended with the second service ace of the run by Aissa Villarreal. In all, the Mustangs closed out the first set on a 9-1 run.

Another 4-0 run for UTPB early in the second set ended with the second ace by Gonzalez to give the Falcons an 8-6 lead, but again the Mustangs answered the Falcons' run with an ever better run, scoring five straight points, with the last three all coming on kills by Trinity Vinzant to make it 11-8 and force a UTPB timeout. After the timeout, MSU expanded the run to 8-0 with two more kills by Vinzant making the score 14-8.

In the third set, MSU doubled up UTPB at 16-8, which came during an 11-1 run to go ahead by 12 points (20-8). The Mustangs won 16 of the final 19 points of the night.

MSU improved its hitting percentage in all three sets, culminating with a .467 hitting percentage (17 kills, 3 errors) in the final set, and had no more than four attack errors in any set. Midwestern State is fifth in the LSC with an attack percentage of .226 and is averaging more than 13 kills per set.

For MSU, Alayna Guerrero led the way with 32 assists and 21 digs while Vinzant finished with 13 kills and zero attack errors on 26 attempts. Guererro has more than 1,000 assists this season and now leads the conference with 10.45 assists per set while Vinzant is eighth with 3.32 kills per set.

Macias finished with eight kills and 12 digs for UTPB while Nickilah Whatley added six kills, Demuth had five, Kimaya Webb had four, and Grimes had three. Kierra Freeman totaled 22 assists.

Heading into the final week of the regular season, UTPB will have two home matches remaining to try and make its push for the postseason. First, the Falcons will host Texas A&M International University at 1 p.m. on Saturday, November 14.