After what the team deemed a disappointing start to the spring season two weeks ago, Christy Johnson-Lynch and the ISU volleyball team cranked up the intensity and answered back with a 3-1 victory over defending runner-up Illinois.

Now, the Cyclones are preparing for the final two weeks of spring ball before a break in competition until August. Johnson-Lynch said because the games don’t count in the standings, some teams don’t take them seriously, but her team is looking at it a little bit differently.

“We’re trying to approach it as, ‘This matters and this is a really great chance for us to get better,'” Johnson-Lynch said. “So we’ve been encouraging the team to approach it that way and I think they have the past couple weeks.”

Over the summer, the team still participates in workouts and open gyms, but there are not any games against actual opponents. Everything the team does against Missouri on Thursday and Nebraska on April 21 will be what the team uses along with the other results to prepare over the offseason.

Senior Rachel Hockaday stressed the importance of the final two weeks of the short season as well and said they can’t be content with where they are.

“It’s huge,” Hockaday said. “What we’re doing now carries over into the fall, even if we don’t have a set program in the summer.”

With the loss of Carly Jenson, a player that was able to play around the entire rotation last year, the team has put a big focus on passing this season. This has forced many players to learn how to pass with more accuracy and effectiveness.

Knowing where each other is at on the court goes hand in hand with the passing they’ve been focusing on. Senior middle blocker Jamie Straube said she’s seen the Cyclones improve in the area, but continuing to step it up over the final two weeks will be equally important.

“I think overall just raising our level of play,” Straube said. “In the spring, as you get more organized, you can kind of see your potential and kind of work from that; and I can tell from the past two weeks, I just feel like we’ve gotten so much more cohesive.”

In volleyball, a team’s out-of-system efficiency can oftentimes be compared to the team’s Achilles’ heel. How a team is able to react when the setter doesn’t set the ball can be a difference-maker in games. Hockaday said the team has shown a big improvement recently, but it can’t let up.

“It’s one of those things you have to keep working on because once you stop doing it, it can go away pretty fast,” Hockaday said.

Last season, the Cyclones swept the Tigers 3-0 at Hilton Coliseum and won again 3-1 in Columbia, Mo. The Tigers still ended up advancing to the NCAA tournament as did Nebraska, so Johnson-Lynch said it will be a good indicator of where the team stands going into the summer.

“I think this will be a good test these next two weeks to see where we’re at,” Johnson-Lynch said. “So we want to make sure we practice hard, train hard and compete hard.”