With its victories on Friday against the Western Carolina Catamounts and the Appalachian State Mountaineers, the Iowa State Cyclones needed a win against the North Carolina State Wolfpack (NC State) on Saturday to win the Appalachian Invitational.

They did just that with a 3-1 win.

Things didn’t look good for the Cyclones as they lost set one 25-23.

From there on out, Iowa State dominated the match winning the next three sets, outscoring NC State 75-51 and took home the Appalachian Invitational Championship.

Set one was closely contested for the most and was tied at 19. NC State jumped ahead holding a 24-23 lead when a bad serve by Iowa State right side player Eleanor Holthaus, led to NC State winning the set 25-23.

The second set was all Cyclones as they jumped out to an 11-5 lead, scoring many different ways. Freshman libero Michal Schuler served two aces, the middle blockers had six stuffs and sophomore middle blocker Avery Rhodes got the set winning kill, giving Iowa State a 25-13 win in the second set.

Iowa State once again jumped out to an early lead in the third set, leading 6-0 and 10-4. NC State had a poor hitting set as they had a .111 hitting percentage and despite trimming down their margin to three at 17-14, NC State couldn’t retake the lead and lost the third set 25-18.

The Cyclones had their best hitting period in the fourth set as they hit .429 and Rhodes sealed the deal for the Cyclones with her career-high 11th kill to win the set 25-20, the match 3-1 and the Appalachian Invitational.