The saying, “Don’t mess with Texas,” is well known and many choose to follow it.

Wednesday night, the ISU volleyball team’s defense chose to ignore it.

Sophomore outside hitter Rachel Hockaday had a career-high 25 digs and Texas was held to a .189 hitting percentage in the Cyclones’ win over the previously undefeated Longhorns.

“We’re an exceptional defensive team, we have been all year and I think we showed it tonight,” said coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “When you take swing after swing after swing and can’t get the ball down, I think it rattles teams.”

Texas outside hitter Destinee Hooker is the focal point of any defense. Although she had a match-high 27 kills, the Cyclones were able to hold her to a .203 hitting percentage, well below her average of .372 in Big 12 play.

“Going into it, we knew they were going to get their kills and have good swings,” said freshman middle blocker Jamie Straube. “We had to take care of our side of the net and take them out of their game.”

After a strong first set, the Cyclones were able to knock Hooker completely off of her game in the second. On top of a foot foul during a serve, Hooker only hit .156.

With Texas and Iowa State being the top two blocking teams in the Big 12, it was to be expected that most of the action would be at the net.

“We were just sharp on everything,” said sophomore middle blocker Debbie Stadick. “[We] got clean transitions on our block, so were just transitioning, picking it up and going back at them.” .

The third set saw the Cyclone defense clamp down on Hooker and the Longhorns even more. Texas only scored 15 in the set, the team’s worst offensive showing all season.

The Cyclones were also able to take the lead in blocks, out-blocking Texas 3–0 in the set.

In the later sets, Texas began to opt for off-speed shots to try to throw off the ISU block.

“We started to see their outside hitters tip and roll and they looked pretty uncomfortable,” Johnson-Lynch said. “They start to wonder, ‘How am I going to get a kill if they’re picking up everything?’”

The ISU defense behind junior libero Ashley Mass was able to clean up any tips that got over the block, eliminating the possibility of shots slipping through.

“Our game plan is to always play good defense,” Mass said. “Once you block a hitter a few times it makes them want to tip and roll, which makes it easier for us back there.”

Iowa State’s 92 total digs marks the second time in three matches that the team recorded 90 or more digs.

“I think a lot of it has to do with our block,” Hockaday said. “They made it easy for me to dig those balls back there, and they did a really good job fixing the block.”

The fifth set saw a defensive resurgence after a brief lapse in the fourth. After erasing an early deficit, the Cyclone defense once again bore down to finish the Longhorns off.

“We could kind of see their faces getting a little worried and we just fed off that as a team and used it to our advantage,” Straube said.

Stadick lead the Cyclones with six block assists while Straube recorded a match-high two solo blocks. The other Cyclones in double digits for digs were Mass with 25, senior setter Kaylee Manns with 15 and sophomore defensive specialist Caitlin Mahoney with 12.