The strategy: let any opponent attack Kristen Hahn.

Left back. Middle back. Right back. No matter where ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch puts her, Hahn will dig the ball.

After uncharacteristically low dig numbers from the team during the early part of the season, Johnson-Lynch began moving Hahn around the back row with the hope of turning that trend around.

“I think Christy’s being really strategic in putting me in positions where I’m going to face up against one of the better hitters,” Hahn said of the strategy.

And rightfully so. Last season, as a sophomore, Hahn was named the Big 12 Libero of the Year after averaging 5.44 digs per set.

Hahn often plays left back like any other libero. However, around the time Iowa State took on then-No. 1 Nebraska at Hilton Coliseum in mid-September, the team’s defense started getting altered.

“For teams that attack a lot [on the] left side, those people tend to hit the ball at the left back digger — that’s where Hahn usually plays and that’s where traditionally liberos play,” Johnson-Lynch said. “A team like Baylor has a lot of attacks from the middle and right side, so those teams tend to hit it at middle back and at right back.”

So Johnson-Lynch and her staff have adjusted accordingly and moved Hahn to the middle and right back positions — depending on the opponent — to counter those very attacks.

The results have not gone unnoticed. In the past four matches — around the time the team got “creative” — Hahn has been named the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week three consecutive times, an ISU record.

In the first nine matches of the season, Hahn averaged 4.43 digs per set for the Cyclones. During the past three weeks and four matches, the junior has averaged 6.19 digs per set.

“She’s just very focused,” Johnson-Lynch said. “She was good preseason, early season, but I feel like in the last few weeks she’s just been everywhere.”

Statistics prove that she definitely has been. In three of those four matches, Hahn has collected 25, 26 and 33 total digs.

Hahn is currently leading the Big 12 during conference play in digs per set at 6.08 through three matches, and nobody else in the conference averages more than 4.25 digs per set during Big 12 play. 

“We’re trying to be creative and find ways to funnel the ball to her,” Johnson-Lynch said. “For us to be a good defensive team and hold teams down to a low hitting percentage, she has to be very involved in the defense.”

In the first seven seasons under Johnson-Lynch, each libero has been heavily involved as an ISU player and has won Big 12 Libero of the Year four consecutive years.

But does Hahn get anything for those weekly awards?

“I don’t think so,” Hahn said. “Just the article.”

Her team has received something more important though: wins. In the last four matches — with this strategy — the team is 3-1. 

If Hahn’s big dig numbers continue to increase, there could be more awards for her down the road and big matches in the season’s final stretch for the team.

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Alex Halsted is a junior in journalism from Mason City, Iowa.