WICHITA FALLS, Texas - Midwestern State jumped on Tarleton State for the first 12 points in Lone Star Conference action Thursday night at D.L. Ligon Coliseum.

And the Mustangs used a strong defense and a stellar group attack effort to bury the TexAnns 25-10, 20-25, 25-19, 25-22 to claim their third-straight victory to close the regular season at 15-13 and clinch the No. 4 seed in next week's LSC Championships.

If Tarleton (21-9, 7-6) closes the regular season with a win at Cameron on Saturday, the teams will square off in the opening round of the conference tournament.

But Thursday, it was really no contest as the MSU setter combination of Kimberly Jeffrey and Zowie O'Neal led the MSU offensive to a .238 team hitting percentage.

Jeffrey tallied 26 set assists while O'Neal pitched in 17 assists in her collegiate debut after breaking her redshirt to play for starting setter Taryn Westerman, who suffered an injury in Tuesday's win at Cameron.

The Mustangs also shined on defense by limiting the TexAnns to a .066 team attack percentage as Tarleton swung into nine blocks on the way to 38 errors.

Senior middle blocker Lauren Bayer put down an errorless eight kills to hit .381 and added a team-best six total blocks, while junior outside hitter Hillary White finished off her 12th double-double of the season with a team-high 11 kills to go along with 12 digs.

Junior libero Kiara Jordan returned from injury to lead back row efforts with 18 digs, while senior Karolina Damjanovic completed an all-around effort with seven kills, eight digs and three total blocks.

Tarleton State was paced by Flynn Harrell and Rachel Wolf who tallied 11 kills each while libero Shea McBrearty led back efforts with a match-high 19 digs.