The ISU volleyball team did some soul searching over the weekend.

After starting the season a perfect 4-0, the Cyclones hit some turbulence in their first two home matches, falling 3-1 to San Diego on Friday and 3-0 to Illinois on Sunday. The weekend has served as somewhat of a rude awakening for a young team that was ranked No. 11 in the country before Friday’s game.

Several shortcomings have been attributed to the weekend’s losses, but one of the more intangible factors was the team’s apparent lack of fire and enthusiasm — something that is typically present.

“I just think we didn’t really have the passion that I feel we normally play with,” said ISU sophomore Mackenzie Bigbee following Sunday’s match. “At North Dakota, everyone was getting excited every point. We were all there getting each other riled up, and tonight, we didn’t really have any of that. We were just dead or mellow the whole time. One or two points, maybe we would get excited but for the most part I thought we just lacked the enthusiasm.”

The team’s youth combined with an unexpectedly quick-playing opponent in the opening home game on Friday helped contribute to a sluggish performance on Sunday but has aided the Cyclones in discovering what kind of team they are this season.

ISU teams in the past have been known for their excellent passing and defensive ability, but this year’s team lacks some of that. The difficulties in the passing game were the primary technical flaw during the weekend. Determining how to play well despite a lesser passing ability is now a primary focus.

“We scheduled tough so we would learn about ourselves a little bit in preseason and figure out what we needed to be working on,” said coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “We don’t have a lot of experienced passers back from last year so we’re going to have nights where we’re not going to pass the ball great, but I think we can play a lot better out of it.”

The new identity of this team presents a new challenge for Johnson-Lynch — finding areas other than passing in which to excel.

Johnson-Lynch said this team could be the best serving team thus far in her time at Iowa State. The Cyclones had six aces on both Friday and Sunday. She also has confidence in the hitters’ ability to terminate the ball on a set from off the net.

It took a pair of one-sided losses to help the Cyclones begin to identify themselves, and now the main focus will be getting settled in and regaining the spark that was absent last weekend.

“I think we’ve had some long, tough practices and we can see some tiredness set in,” said ISU senior libero Kristen Hahn. “Getting classes, your schedules under your belt, it’s pretty stressful. I’m not attributing our loss to that at all, but I think once we get that figured out and people can get in a good routine that’ll make volleyball easier.”