Iowa State started off its spring season with a solid performance in its spring tournament Saturday.

The Cyclones finished the day 2-1 after beating Wayne State and Northern Iowa and losing their match to Minnesota.

Hannah Willms had an impressive showing in the team’s first game action since the NCAA tournament in December. The outside hitter redshirted in her freshman season. Willms recorded 10 kills in the 3-0 victory over Wayne State on Saturday,  and six kills in the 2-1 victory over UNI.

“She just gets better every day,” said coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “This is her first week back with us full time, so I think she was a little bit rusty. She has so much more room there to improve. It’s going to be exciting to watch her grow and develop.”

The match against Minnesota, a team that finished in the top 10 last season, featured an exciting finish that went into extra points in game three. Iowa State fell into an early 11-3 hole before battling back and tying the contest at 14-14. 

Minnesota went on another run and pushed out to a 21-14 lead, but the Cyclones came back again and brought it within two points at 23-21.

The teams traded points before senior Kelsey Petersen put the Cyclones up 25-24 with a kill. The Gophers, however, countered with three-straight points to take the game 27-25 and the match 2-1.

Petersen lead the way for the Cyclones, with 10 kills in the match to go with Debbie Stadick and Tenisha Matlock, who each had seven.

“They’re really aggressive,” junior defensive specialist Kristen Hahn said. “They hit the ball really hard, and they don’t really take a lot off of their shots. They hit the ball hard every time, and we just have to work around that.”

Overall, Johnson-Lynch felt that her team played well, but also saw some areas for improvement. She said she’d like to see better out-of-system play and more consistent ball handling.

Communication is also something the Cyclones would like to focus on heading into next season. They feel that a lack of communication is what caused some problems for the team last season.

“Our communication is a lot better so far,” Willms said. “We all have good chemistry for being a new group and missing a couple players. I think overall we did pretty good.”