It has been more than seven months, but the revenge match has finally come. Iowa State was coming off a 3-0 loss to No. 15 Northern Iowa on the road while attempting to rebound with a win against No. 8 Nebraska.

The end result: The Huskers swept the Cyclones 3-0 in Lincoln, Neb., for the team’s second loss of the non-conference season.

Now, 216 days later, Iowa State hosts Nebraska in the spring season finale and Tenisha Matlock, a native of North Platte, Neb., said it has been in the back of their minds since it happened.

“It’s just a burning fire that we lost last year just because we should have won,” Matlock said. “But they’re really good, so it’s just more like giving all you’ve got.”

Coach Christy Johnson-Lynch gave her team a tougher-than-normal spring schedule this season, highlighted by matches against Illinois and Nebraska.

During the course of the month-long season, the team has showed improvement in every match since the opening weekend, and Johnson-Lynch said it is important not to take a step back now that things are winding down.

“We want to feel like we’re continuing to move forward and getting better at the things we’ve been working on,” Johnson-Lynch said. “It’d just be nice to see it as a reflection of the things we’ve been working on this spring.”

Primarily, the team has been focusing on out-of-system work — when setter Allison Landwehr does not set the ball — production in the middle and passing this spring.

Of the three, “out-of-system” is something Johnson-Lynch has touched on a lot, and she said it will be an area she hopes to see the team excel in against her alma mater.

“We’ve been working on that very hard all spring so I’d love to see us really, really good ‘out-of-system’; or whenever [Landwehr] digs the ball, I’d love to see us look really, really good when we do that,” Johnson-Lynch said.

It might come as a surprise to some Cyclone fans to know the team has been practicing since it got back from the holiday break.

That behind-the-scenes work has helped Iowa State gain a 3-1 record this spring, including a 3-1 victory against defending runner-up Illinois. Senior Jamie Straube said it has been a lot of work.

“Since we got back from Christmas break, we’ve been lifting, running; it’s a lot of hours,” Straube said. “Just to have that hard work pay off is such a good feeling going into the summer and getting ready for the fall.”

The 5 p.m. match-up is also the team’s first home contest since hosting the early rounds of the NCAA tournament in December.

The bout is one Johnson-Lynch believes will be the toughest they’ve had all season, but Landwehr said it will be a good way to end spring play.

“Just to have that hard work pay off is such a good feeling going into the summer and getting ready for the fall,” Landwehr said. “To end with a great team like that, rather than have to start with them, I think it’ll show a lot with how we’ve been working this spring season.”

With final exams knocking on the door and summer around the corner, it could be tough to stay focused with just one match left. However, Straube said it will be a much different atmosphere than what they’ve seen so far this spring.

“It makes it feel more like the fall where you have just more people there, a little more hype going into it, so that’s kind of exciting because we miss that throughout the whole spring,” Straube said. “You miss the big competition, so it’ll be fun to play back here.”

The first game begins at 5 p.m. at Hilton Coliseum. Attendance is free and the rivals will play a best-of-five match.