The ISU volleyball team pushed No. 8 Texas to five sets Sunday, but ultimately lost a 3-2 decision (16-25, 25-14, 20-25, 25-21, 8-15).

After dropping the first set of the match, the No. 16 Cyclones (12-3, 3-1 Big 12) put on a compelling performance in the second set, with a 25-14 win to tie the match at 1-1.

“We just looked scared in the first game, I felt like we looked rattled,” said ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “I think we got blocked early and then our hitters got scared and tentative and decided to back off.

“They did a good job of bouncing back in game two, it could have gone the other way easily and I thought they responded pretty well.”

The match see-sawed again with Texas (9-4, 2-1 Big 12) taking the third set 25-20, and the Cyclones responding in the fourth with a 25-21 win.

The third set is where Johnson-Lynch said the match could have turned in the Cyclones’ favor after Texas started sloppy, giving away five points on service errors.

“They were waiting for us to take over and we never did,” Johnson-Lynch said. “They would give us an easy ball and we’d mis-time the target or miss the set or we’d make a bad attack decision and get blocked.”

The Longhorns got out to a quick 3-0 lead in the fifth set and never looked back, with a 15-8 win to end the match.

“It really comes down to the team that executes the best and Texas made some really good shots,” said middle blocker Jamie Straube. “They were hitting cross-court almost the whole game and then there at the end they started hitting more line on us. We kind of got timid and balls that usually go down for us weren’t going down.”

Straube led the Cyclone attack with 17 kills while hitting at a .533 clip against a lanky Texas front line that registered 11 blocks in the match.

“We expected a tough block. They’re a really athletic team, and we need to work on hitting high against teams like that,” said outside hitter Carly Jenson. “We had a lot of errors, and if we would have cut down on those, it would have been a different story.”

The Cyclones will be back in action this Wednesday at Kansas State at 7 p.m.