The ISU volleyball team lost to Texas in straight sets (25-14, 28-26, 25-21) on Friday in Austin, Texas, in what was a battle for Big 12 supremacy.

“Texas is incredibly athletic, and we knew we’d have to play extremely well to beat them at their place,” said ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “I think we saw flashes of being able to compete with them, but we weren’t able to do it for long enough stretches.”

No. 14 Iowa State (17-4, 8-2 Big 12) relinquished its top spot in the Big 12 standings after its second loss of the season to No. 9 Texas (15-4, 9-1).

Texas was led by freshman Khat Bell, who recorded a match-high 13 kills on just 16 attempts for an .812 attack percentage on the night.

“[Bell] wasn’t doing anything special. She was just hitting the slide, but she’s a great athlete so she was hitting it very high and very hard,” Johnson-Lynch said. “She also hit a high ball up the middle that we don’t see very often, and we didn’t do a very good job defending that.”

Bell was also a terror at the net, recording two solo blocks as well as four block assists.

Another Longhorn freshman, 6-foot-3-inch outside hitter Haley Eckerman, of Waterloo, Iowa, also gave the Cyclone defense problems as she recorded 10 kills while attacking at a .318 clip.

Outside hitter Carly Jenson was the only Cyclone in double figures in kills with 11 on 39 attempts, while ISU hitters were held to just .179 attack percentage.

The Cyclones have only hit less than .179 three other times this season, against Northern Iowa, Nebraska and their first match against Texas — all of which were losses.

“I don’t think we passed well enough to get in a very good groove offensively, so passing broke down,” Johnson-Lynch said. “We knew we’d have to make really good attack decisions, and we just didn’t do that often enough, so we hit the ball down into their block too many times.”

The Cyclones will prepare for another road match to face Oklahoma, which currently sits at third in the Big 12 standings.