It’s been a while since the ISU volleyball team put all the pieces together. It’s a task easier said than done, but was accomplished Saturday night as Iowa State sent Oklahoma packing with a 3-0 sweep.

The win comes after Iowa State won its first two sets against Texas on the road Wednesday, but lost the final three to lose the match. One area this team has talked about throughout the season is consistent play.

“Tonight was the first night I feel like we’ve put it together in three consecutive sets,” Hockaday said. “I think our ball-handling was sharp tonight, and that let Alison [Landwehr] just pick where she wanted to set and she put some great balls up there and kind of spread out the offense a little bit, so it was a really good night all around.”

While Victoria Hurtt led the Cyclones (11-7, 5-3 Big 12) offensively with 13 kills, it was her supporting cast that made the difference in holding off the Sooners (16-7, 5-3). Hockaday, Jamie Straube and Mackenzie Bigbee all finished with at least nine kills to help the team to a .367 hitting percentage, the largest mark of the season.

ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch said it’s not very common for her team to have such widespread success on the offensive end and was especially excited for Bigbee, who she said had been struggling recently.

“Usually you kind of wait for

the stars and the moon to align and then it happens so it’s really good to see this against a good team,” Johnson-Lynch said.

Continuing with the offensive attack, serving played a positive role in Iowa State’s success Saturday night as well. A total of 10 service errors by the Cyclones might jump out at as a pretty high number. However, the give-and-take that comes with serving can cause a lot of service errors.

“Even though we were making

a lot of errors, we were making a lot

of really good serves and getting

them out-of-system so I think there’s more reward,” said freshman libero Caitlin Nolan.

Reigning Big 12 Libero of the Year Kristen Hahn has been leading the team in digs in just about every match this season. The same wasn’t the case on Saturday as the all-around play on defense continued.

Hockaday led the Cyclones with 14 digs, and Hahn was close behind with 11. Landwehr followed with 10 as Iowa State recorded 51 as a team.

With Hahn’s four straight Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week awards this season, teams are becoming more aware of who she is and how to keep the ball away from her. Johnson-Lynch said she is glad she has other players who can get in on the action.

“We can’t rely on Hahn to get six digs per set every night,” Johnson-Lynch said. “It’s really good to know that Hockaday can step it up, [Landwehr] can step it up, Nolan was pretty solid — just all-around pretty solid defensively.”

After the collapse against Texas on Wednesday, Iowa State was not going to take any chances. 

The Cyclones won the second set 25-18 — the same score as the first — and hustled into the locker room for intermission Saturday. 

Before fans could bat an eye, they were back on the court just minutes later to get back at it. 

“We just all were saying: ‘We’ve been here a million times before, and the teams we’re playing have come back a different team,’” Hockaday said. “I think our focus was there, and we wanted to keep it short in there so we could come out and get warm again, because that is the worst when that happens.”