With the fourth-largest crowd on its feet at Hilton Coliseum, the scene was a blur as the ball sailed over the line.

The match point lifted No. 18 Iowa State to a win against No. 3 Texas in five sets Saturday to conclude the regular season. It was only the fourth victory ever against the Longhorns in team history, and the team’s second top-five win of the season.

Leading the fifth set 14-13, senior Jamie Straube tipped the ball over the net, and Texas’ Bailey Webster hit it long to secure the ISU win. After the match, players were still wondering what all happened.

“I think I blacked out, literally,” said libero Kristen Hahn.

Following the match, other players were asking teammates how it had ended, too. The one thing Iowa State (20-7, 13-3 Big 12) was certain of was it had beaten Texas (23-4, 15-1) to secure a second-place standing in the Big 12.

Iowa State lost in Austin, Texas, in five sets Oct. 17. After leading the Longhorns 2-0 at intermission, the Cyclones dropped the next three sets and fell to 10-7 on the season.

“We remembered the feeling,” said outside hitter Rachel Hockaday. “We said it in the huddle after that fourth set: ‘We remember what it felt like coming into that locker room in Texas and saying we’re getting them at home.'”

After Texas won the first set of the night, Iowa State won the next two. But Texas downed Iowa State easily in the fourth set, and the teams moved to the match-deciding fifth set.

The Cyclones led 11-6 in the fifth set, but Texas charged back to even the score at 13-13 before Iowa State took the final two points and the match in front of 4,396 standing fans.

“After that fourth set, it was just forget about it,” said setter Alison Landwehr. “We had that early lead [in the fifth set], which really helped us because they started inching back at the end.”

On the night, Landwehr tied a career high with 66 assists. Hahn contributed 30 digs for the third time this season and averaged six digs per set.

The Cyclones also out-hit Texas despite Webster going 28-of-56 in kills for the Longhorns. Iowa State hit .333 — the first time one of Johnson-Lynch’s team has hit above .300 against Texas — and five players reached double-digit kill totals.

Following the loss at Texas in October, the Cyclones finished the season on a 10-match winning streak and reached 20 wins for the fifth consecutive season.

“The exciting thing to me is we keep getting better, and that just doesn’t happen this time of the year,” Johnson-Lynch said of her team. “Very few teams I’ve had do we continue to get better in late November.”

After beating No. 1 Nebraska in September, Saturday’s win against the Longhorns acted as another milestone. Iowa State has now beaten both the Cornhuskers and Longhorns in the same season twice — in 2009 and 2012.

Thinking back to the team’s list of goals, Johnson-Lynch said there is still much to accomplish.

“Now the next step is a Final Four,” Johnson-Lynch said. “I don’t say that to put pressure on us or to say anything else is a waste — I just feel like we’ve kind of been there, done that.

“We’ve been to that Elite Eight, we’ve been so close. Are we talented enough now to make that next step? I feel we are.”