The end of an era came for three senior Cyclone volleyball players on Saturday night, as they played their final match at Hilton Coliseum in cardinal and gold.

In the regular season finale, No. 16 Iowa State (20-8, 13-7 Big 12) fell to No. 8 Texas (23-5, 18-2) in four sets (25-22, 23-25, 25-27, 19-25).

“I think we just had some problems slowing them down a little bit,” said coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “They’ve got some physical, athletic players who we just didn’t serve tough enough to keep out of their system.”

The Cyclones played a physical match with the Longhorns, who won the battle in blocking 12-8.

“I don’t know what they blocked early versus late, but I felt like they had some key blocks late in the match,” Johnson-Lynch said. “There were just a couple bad choices on attack, I think, where we could have hit high off the block and gotten another good swing and we pulled it down a little bit.”

On top of Texas’ blocking numbers, the Cyclones eased their foot on the gas pedal heading down the home stretch of the match.

“We got less aggressive,” said ISU senior Victoria Henson. “People didn’t know who was taking balls and we kind of got lost in some plays, but we just have to keep being aggressive and getting after it.”

Henson, one of the three seniors who was honored on senior night, made the most of her last appearance at Hilton with a match-high 21 kills on 53 attacks.

“I didn’t even notice that I took 53 attacks,” Henson said. “Normally if I take a lot of swings I can tell, but today I didn’t really notice.”

The outside hitter from Leavenworth, Kan., also recorded 18 digs on the night for her third straight double-double and her 13th of the season.

Ashley Mass also ended her illustrious career at Hilton, managing a team-high 21 digs along with five assists. The libero who will graduate the all-time leader in digs at Iowa State, witnessed Texas’ physicality firsthand.

“They’re a great offensive team,” Mass said. “They don’t hit lightly, like, ever. So you’ve constantly got balls coming at you so when you get them up it just makes you that much better that it’s coming at you so much harder.”

Despite ending the regular season on a loss, Johnson-Lynch said she is happy with the way her team played.

“Even though we lost, this is one of the better matches we’ve played in a few weeks,” Johnson-Lynch said. “That’s encouraging to me going into the tournament.”

As far as hopes for the NCAA Tournament, the team isn’t too picky as far as its preferences.

“I don’t really care where we go, just preferably not to any Big 12 schools,” Mass said. “It’ll be nice to play someone new, I’m hoping.”

The team will await its postseason fate at 2 p.m. Sunday at West Cyde Wings during the Selection Show. However, they are focusing on tightening up a few aspects of their play — most notably aggressiveness.

“That’s definitely something we’ve been talking about a lot,” Mass said. “I feel like there were a lot of plays where we could have had a chance to hit the ball over and had a chance to get a kill and we were just kind of tentative and were just not as aggressive as we should have been.”