STARKVILLE — Twenty-five points away from sweeping through the StarkVegas Classic at the Newell-Grissom Building with three straight-set wins, the Mississippi State volleyball team ran into some sudden trouble.

The Bulldogs won the first two sets against Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday afternoon with ease, taking the first 25-8 and the second 25-15. After sweeping Gonzaga on Friday afternoon and again Saturday morning, MSU could see a perfect weekend not far away.

“I think that the first two sets almost gave us this false sense of confidence that Southeastern wasn’t going to get gritty and down and dirty and fight with everything they had,” Mississippi State coach Julie Darty Dennis said.

The Bulldogs (3-0) still finished an undefeated tournament, but the Lions gave them a battle before all was said and done. SELA (0-2) won the third set 25-18 and put up a good fight in the fourth before Mississippi State closed out its opponent with a 25-21 fourth set, securing a 3-1 win.

“We just figured out a way to get it done,” Darty Dennis said.

In a back-and-forth final set, the Bulldogs finally pulled away after a 19-all tie. Sania Petties and Gabby Waden combined on a block to put Mississippi State ahead, and the Bulldogs won the next three points before SELA got two back.

Then Lauren Myrick unleashed a perfect cross-court kill from the left side to put MSU within a point of the match before SELA missed a return shot on the Bulldogs’ final serve. Myrick finished with a double-double comprising 14 kills and 15 digs, and she was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

“She’s just become a really well-rounded outside hitter for us and someone that we can rely on,” Darty Dennis said. “She’s scoring a lot of points, she’s digging a lot of balls, she’s passing a lot of balls, and it was fun to kind of watch her come into her own this weekend.”

Waden led the Bulldogs in kills with 19, finishing with a hitting percentage over .400 and contributing several big swings. But her blocking contributions — something Mississippi State did its best to emphasize — proved just as important.

The senior from Columbia, South Carolina, said the Bulldogs keyed in on the Lions’ best hitters and managed to limit them. Cicily Hidalgo was SELA’s leader in kills with 10.

“In practice, we’re always talking about, ‘We need to be the best defensive team,’ and I think our blocking really played a role in how we played them tonight,” Waden said.

It was sharp throughout the first and second sets as the Bulldogs simply cruised. Mississippi State went up 12-6 in the opening set, pushed the lead to 22-7 and allowed just one more point. In the second, senior Deja Robinson led the way to a 25-15 MSU win.

But with a 2-0 lead, the Bulldogs seemed surprised to see the Lions come out firing. SELA scored five of the first six points in the third set, and the Bulldogs never got close to making a run to sweep the match.

“In that third set, they just came out super hot and kind of took the momentum from us,” Darty Dennis said. “We really had to kind of regroup and reassess in the timeout — reassess who we are and what our goals were for the weekend before we lost sight of that.”

With the goal of nine perfect sets off the table, the Bulldogs were happy to close the weekend with a third straight win. They recaptured the serving aggressiveness they had lost and rode it out even when SELA countered point for point in the fourth set, pulling away to win the match.

Next up, Mississippi State will go on the road for the first time this season to play in the Flo Hyman Classic in Houston. The Bulldogs will face McNeese State at 10 a.m. Friday, the host Cougars at 6:30 p.m. Friday and Louisiana-Monroe at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.