In the NCAA tournament, it can be difficult for teams to know exactly what they have to prepare for.

When George Mason put a stranglehold hold on Iowa State’s outside hitters, it became the middle blockers’ job to carry the team’s load.

“They were putting up a huge block,” said sophomore outside hitter Rachel Hockaday. “It was very frustrating to hit against them because they set up a good block and when you did hit around it their defense was there picking it up.”

Sophomore Debbie Stadick had a match-high 11 kills and hit .391 while freshman Jamie Straube recorded nine kills and hit .500. Senior Diane Kieger chipped in one kill on her only swing of the night.

“After the second game we involved our middles a lot more and I thought they did a really nice job,” said Iowa State coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “Really getting them involved, they scored a lot of points out of the middle.”

When the George Mason block settled in on the outsides in the second set, the middles combined for 17 kills for the remainder of the match. Seven of those kills came from Straube in the third set.

“Our defense makes it really easy for us to get into a rhythm,” Stadick said. “Kaylee can dish out the ball and we get more one-on-one looks.”

Shutting down the outside that includes one All-Big 12 player and one honorable mention was a big part of George Mason’s game plan.

“Iowa State has very good outside hitters,” said George Mason coach Pat Kendrick. “We knew that if we could slow them down a little bit it would give us a chance to score some points.”

The Patriots were able to slow down the outsides more and more as the match progressed. Hockaday, junior Victoria Henson and sophomores Kelsey Peterson and Carly Jenson were held to a combined 14 kills in the last two sets of the match.

“I was pretty happy with the job we did, certainly they got some kills and it would have been nice to have blocked a few more balls,” Kendrick said. “I thought overall we did a nice job trying to slow that down a little bit.”

The middles didn’t just come up big on the offensive side of the ball. The Cyclones held an 8-6 advantage at the net and held George Mason to a .071 hitting percentage. Stadick and Straube accounted for seven blocks, good for half of the team’s total.

Straube’s five block assists were a team-high and second only to George Mason’s Laura Turner, who had six.