On a night when the ISU volleyball team celebrated the final home match of four seniors’ careers with a victory, it was a junior that stepped up with a key performance.

Junior Jen Malcom put down a career-high 18 kills and hit .441 as the Cyclones (17-13, 11-9 Big 12) solidified their NCAA tournament resume with a 3-1 victory (30-23, 29-31, 30-18, 30-22) over No. 21 Oklahoma in their season finale.

Coach Christy Johnson said Malcom’s competitiveness helps her out in big matches like the one with the Sooners (21-9, 13-7).

“When it’s time to play and really get after it, she is so fiery and competes day in and day out,” Johnson said.

Malcom said she knew she needed a big performance with senior Lauren Cummings playing on two sprained ankles.

“I knew I had to step up my game and not force as many balls to her,” Malcom said. “I just had to get myself open and take a lot of pressure off of other people.”

Cummings, however, did not show any ill effects of the injury, joining Malcom in double figures with 16 kills and fellow senior Erin Boeve put down 12 as well. Sophomore Kaylee Manns had her 14th double-double of the season with 56 assists and 17 digs and freshman Ashley Mass had 30 digs, which was the first 30-dig match for a Cyclone in two years.

Johnson said the play of Cummings was a very pleasant surprise, considering her condition.

“We didn’t even think she’d play up until I submitted the lineup two minutes before the match,” Johnson said. “We said ‘we’ll give it try and if you can’t play we’ll pull you back out.'”

Malcom and Cummings also got a Cyclone block going that was able to shut down the Oklahoma offense to the tune of a .153 hitting percentage, while outblocking the Sooners 12-9 and hitting .233 themselves. Iowa State also outdug Oklahoma 80-72 and had five service aces as well.

One of the members of the Cyclone defense, senior Laura Cady, was elated to get the victory considering the Iowa State’s postseason situation.

“It was great to go out with a win and it puts us in a lot better position than if we wouldn’t have won,” Cady said.

This victory may have cemented an at-large berth for Iowa State, with their third victory over a ranked team this season, while finishing fifth in the very tough Big 12 Conference behind four ranked teams. 11-9 also was the conference record of the final at-large team in the Big 12 last season.

Johnson said the victory was very important for the program with so much riding on the match and it being Senior Night.

“It was great for our team to rally around them and to play so well in this last home match,” Johnson said.

Malcom said the other players just wanted to get a victory and send the seniors out with a victory.

“These seniors have been working here for four years and they deserve a senior night where we just go out and kick some butt and just dominate a team,” Malcom said. “You just need to go out and respect that and give your all for the seniors, and I just went out and played for the seniors.”

Iowa State will find out its tournament fate tomorrow night at 7 p.m. The bracket selection show will be shown on ESPNU.