Ten games into the Big 12 slate, the No. 25 ISU volleyball team will look away from the conference for one more game this season on Tuesday night as the Cyclones host South Dakota of the Summit League.

The Cyclones (14-6, 8-2 Big 12) will be carrying a four-game conference win streak into the match against the Coyotes (18-8, 9-2 Summit League).

Iowa State has climbed back into the top 25 for the first time since Oct. 6 after two wins last week against Texas Tech at Hilton Coliseum in Ames and Baylor in Waco, Texas.

ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch said that teams in the Big 12 get a total of four byes throughout conference play and this match will allow them to keep playing without feeling like they took too much time off.

“If you don’t play enough it just doesn’t quite feel comfortable when you get back out there again so this allows us to continue to work on the things we’ve been working on and stay sharp so that we feel like when we go into Oklahoma we haven’t been off for too long,” Johnson-Lynch said.

She also said that the preparation for this match will be the same and that they are treating it just like every other match.

“I feel like it’s still a really important match,” Johnson-Lynch said. “Just because it’s not a conference match, it’s still a good team, they have a lot of wins. It’s important for us for a lot of reasons, and mostly we just have to keep getting better and I’d really like to see our offensive numbers kind of continue the trend we set at Baylor. Hitting for a good percentage, getting kills in transition and hitting well in transition. We haven’t done that lately, hit really well in transition against Baylor so I’d like to see that trend continue tomorrow.”

Senior libero Kristen Hahn, who just won Big 12 defensive player of the week honors, making for the 17th time in her career that she has won a Big 12 weekly award, said it is interesting to see a new team at this point in the season and that a bit of a different focus.

“We can’t overlook them just because they are in a different conference and I think it’s going to be a good challenge just to see someone new,” Hahn said. “I think they’re going to be ready to come in and play and they’re going to want to play hard and want to beat us and we’ve got to do the same thing.”