People always say history repeats itself, and it nearly did on Wednesday night at Hilton Coliseum.

Just one week removed from going up 2-0 at No. 8 Texas and then losing the remaining three, the No. 22 Cyclones (12-7, 6-3 Big 12) found a way to pull out a fourth-set victory against No. 17 Kansas (19-4, 7-2) to win the match. 

Iowa State won the first two sets and was on its way to a sweep of the No. 17 team in the country. But the Cyclones went on to lose the third set after going on a 9-0 run and forced themselves to make plays in the fourth set. 

“We dug ourselves such a big hole we were forced to come back, but I was glad we started off pretty good in game four,” said ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. 

When the Cyclones played Texas exactly one week ago, the team collapsed in the final three sets to lose the match. 

The win would have been the first in program history in Austin, Texas, and setter Alison Landwehr said it definitely crossed her mind as the fourth set progressed on Wednesday. 

“It’s like ‘OK, don’t let what happened at Texas happen again,'” Landwehr said.

Landwehr also added that as matches lengthen, it gives the opponent the chance to pick up on tendencies more and that’s what happened against Kansas. 

“It makes us make some adjustments because they know our strengths by the time it’s getting to that point in the match,” Landwehr said. 

The Cyclones were down by as much as eight in the third set but went on a 9-0 run to take a 24-21 lead. The Jayhawks battled back and edged out Iowa State 29-27 to force a fourth set.

As the team went to the huddle to prepare for the fourth set, outside hitter Rachel Hockaday said the plan was to not let what had happened in the past get into their heads. 

“We just knew that we didn’t want to lose to them again,” Hockaday said. “It was a pretty emotional set that third set, so we wanted to make sure we came out on top right from the start and just stay aggressive.”

As the fourth set rolled along, Iowa State and Kansas traded leads early, but the Jayhawks broke away midway through the set. It was Iowa State again, however, that came through with an 8-0 run to get back into the match. 

The Cyclones won the last set by a score of 25-23 behind 17 kills from Victoria Hurtt, who also had the game-winning kill to close out the victory. Redshirt freshman Tory Knuth came off the bench for Iowa State to record six kills and a pair of blocks, as well. 

In such an up and down match like Wednesday night, Johnson-Lynch was glad to be able to have to fresh legs to put in.  

“She was really good,” Johnson-Lynch said. “I’m very comfortable subbing her in in a high-pressure game, and you don’t feel that way with a lot of players because they don’t have a lot of experience.”

Iowa State heads to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on TCU on Saturday. Match time is scheduled for 1 p.m.