QUAD CITIES -    The two most successful programs in the history of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament will meet to decide the 2019 championship.

Second-seeded Missouri State completed the championship pairing with an impressive performance in an 89-64 victory over third-seeded Northern Iowa. That sends the Lady Bears (22-9) into Sunday's 2 p.m. title game against top-seeded Drake, which advanced with a 65-54 victory over fourth-seeded Illinois State.

It will be the sixth time the two have met in the finals, with Drake winning three of the previous five. Missouri State has won 10 tournament championships, most recently in 2016. Drake (27-5), ranked 21st nationally, has won the last two titles and owns seven overall. They split their regular-season meetings, each winning on the other's floor.

Missouri State stormed past Northern Iowa with a tournament record 35-point second quarter. That sent the Lady Bears into a 45-30 halftime lead, too much for the Panthers to overcome and ending Northern Iowa's run of three straight appearances in the championship game.

Eleven players scored for the Lady Bears, led by Danielle Gitzen with 22 points. Gitzen went 8-for-12 from the field, including 4-for-5 from 3-point range, handed out four assists and did not commit a turnover.

Elle Ruffridge gave the Lady Bears a nice lift with a career-high 14 points, an effort that included a career-best four 3-point baskets. It came against a team from her home state, where Ruffridge is the all-time leader in scoring and 3-pointers among Iowa high school players.

Alexa Willard scored 11 for Missouri State, Sydney Wilson added nine and Jasmine Franklin and Brice Calip each had eight. Franklin also pulled down 14 rebounds to lead her team's overwhelming 49-25 edge on the boards. The 89 points scored by the Lady Bears matches the sixth-highest total in a Valley tournament game.
 
Karli Rucker led Northern Iowa with 21 points on 9-for-14 shooting, but she did not get much help. Cynthia Wolf added nine points for the Panthers and Taylor Hagen, who scored the go-ahead basket in the closing seconds of a quarterfinal victory over Southern Illinois, scored eight.

Neither team got much going in the first quarter, which ended with UNI leading 11-10. But the Lady Bears took off in the next 10 minutes, scoring on their seven possessions of the quarter of 15 of their 19 in the period.

The Panthers made one run at the Lady Bears after that, closing to 49-43 with 6 minutes left in the third quarter. But Missouri State built the lead up to 64-49 by the end of the quarter, then rattled off the first 11 points of the fourth quarter to put it out of reach.