Iowa State traveled to Texas Christian for the Big 12 opener only to see its winning ways dry up quicker than the Texas weather.

An Inauspicious Beginning

The ISU volleyball team (7-4, 0-1 Big 12) lost in four sets to Texas Christian (11-5, 1-1 Big 12), ending a run for Iowa State in which it won seven of eight matches.

ISU volleyball coach Christy Johnson-Lynch described the experience as a “rough start” but also as a potential eye-opener, providing evidence to back up discussions she and her staff have had with the team about the quality of opponents they can expect to face in conference play.

“Years past there have been times that you’ve felt you did not have to be at your best and you would still win, even on the road,” Johnson-Lynch said. “I do not feel that this year…we are ever going to be in that position.”

Growing Pains

Johnson-Lynch described part of the problem as inexperience in the Big 12 atmosphere, citing different times throughout the match in which every ISU player on the court was either a freshman or a sophomore.

The team’s youth is a double-edged sword for the Cyclones. It makes it difficult to rebound from a blow like the 30-28 loss Iowa State suffered in the pivotal third set against the Horned Frogs, which put the Cyclones in a 2-1 hole and which Johnson-Lynch said robbed some of the heart from her team.

“I think we did not realize how much that took [out of us] until we came into that next game and started from zero,” said freshman Alexis Conaway. “Winning those big games is huge. We saw that in the UNI match.”

However, the team’s youth also allows for potential growth, which can provide an advantage for Iowa State that its more seasoned competitors may not be able to match.

“When you have got a lot of young kids playing, they are going to get better pretty fast,” Johnson-Lynch said. “They can really emerge mid to late season.”

Freedom to Unleash

The road gets no easier for Iowa State as it travels back to Texas for a match against the No. 2 Texas Longhorns.

Johnson-Lynch said that playing against an opponent that her team is not favored to beat should help unshackle her players from anxiety and correct some of the issues that caused them to falter against Texas Christian.

“There is always freedom when you are the underdog,” Johnson-Lynch said. “There is freedom to just go play and be aggressive-maybe more aggressive than you would be normally, and less fearful of mistakes.”

She added that the tentativeness she saw from her team led to errors on the court and that not all errors are created equal.

“We want to make aggressive mistakes,” Johnson-Lynch said.

The coach’s attitude permeated her team in practice on Sept. 29 as senior Taylor Goetz had a message for the highly ranked Longhorns.

“We are coming for you,” Goetz said.