Now at the halfway mark of the Big 12 season, No. 22 Iowa State is clicking at the right time.

After losing in five games at No. 8 Texas and sweeping Oklahoma in Ames, the Cyclones (11-7, 5-3 Big 12) will prepare to take on each conference opponent for the second time.

Starting the second half of Big 12 play is somewhat of a “rejuvenating” part of the season for setter Alison Landwehr, who recorded 19.67 assists per set in the win against Oklahoma.

“We get a chance to start over with all these teams, some that we lost to and some that we beat,” Landwehr said. “[It is] another chance to prove ourselves and get them away or home.”

During the first half of Big 12 play, ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch said her squad “beat the teams we were supposed to beat” but played rather poorly at times.

Johnson-Lynch believes now, heading into the second round of conference play, her team is in a good position to be more successful.

“I think we can challenge to do better the second half for sure,” Johnson-Lynch said. “That’s going to be a goal. We can have a better record the second time around but we’ll need to play like we have in the past week. We weren’t always good and I think we hit Kansas and K-State, I think, when we weren’t very good.

“I like how we’ve been playing and I think we have a great shot if we continue to have a better second half than first half.”

Competitive anger has been the phrase driving the Cyclones for the past couple weeks. That is going to be the mentality, libero Kristen Hahn hopes, will continue to push the team for the remainder of the year.

“I think our new mentality needs to be we’re starting a new season,” said Hahn, who continues to lead the Big 12 in digs per set with 5.57. “It’s a brand new start, fresh, it’s 0-0. After the [Texas] Tech game, I think we switched our mentality and we’ve just been relentless every since.

“We’re finally clicking, although we have been throughout the year, I think everyone’s finally coming together.”

Defensively, Iowa State has been in a rhythm for the last few matches. Against Texas, a strong offensive team, the Cyclones recorded 14.8 digs per set as a team and 17 against Oklahoma.

Especially against Oklahoma, Johnson-Lynch said she thought her team seemed to be clicking as a whole. 

“It’s not often when it feels like everybody on your team is playing well at once,” Johnson-Lynch said. “We’ve got another very important week ahead of us and we’ll have to have those kinds of performances for us to have a chance at KU or TCU.”

Even in the loss to Texas after leading the match 2-0, Hahn thought the competitive match gave Iowa State a renewed confidence going into the rest of the conference season.

“I told the team after the game, we might have lost, but I’m so proud of the way that we played,” Hahn said. “We’re the first team to take a set off of them in the Big 12. They swept KU and they swept K-State. We might have lost to them, but we can play with a team that swept the teams we lost to. That just proves that we have all the potential in the world.”