The ISU volleyball team is known for its defense, but Wednesday night, offense led them to victory.

The Cyclones hit .378 – .164 better than their season average – as the team took out the Kansas Jayhawks (9-7, 2-4 Big 12) in front of a crowd of 1,383 at Hilton Coliseum. Iowa State (11-5, 5-1) came away with its sixth sweep of the season, 3-0 (30-24, 30-25, 30-19) to move to 5-1 in conference play – its best start since joining the Big 12 in 1996.

“We’ve been working hard on our offense the past couple weeks, and tonight that work paid off,” said senior Erin Boeve.

Setter Kaylee Manns keyed the offense’s efficiency, finishing with 46 assists. Four players registered double-figure kills, led by Jen Malcom’s 14 and 13 from Mary Bisenius.

Malcom hit .636 for the match – the 10th-best hitting percentage in ISU history for a single match with at least 15 attempts. Manns even got into the attack mode, recording six kills on an array of tips and swings. Over her last five matches, Manns has 23 kills with no errors, good for a .605 hitting percentage.

“I think Kaylee is doing a great job of setting,” said senior Laura Cady. “She is getting a lot of one-on-ones for our hitters.”

The Cyclones looked sluggish early in game one, falling into an early 2-5 hole as they struggled to get their defense on track. The team climbed back and took multiple 3-point leads, but could never shake the Jayhawks. Iowa State was finally able to muster a run, scoring the last four points of the game to seal the win.

Game two followed pretty much the same script. The Cyclones never got into a rhythm, again relying on a late run to clinch the game. The team struggled with serve-receive, giving away 5 points with passing errors.

That sort of mental lapse is an uncommon occurrence for the Cyclones.

“We are usually just running the table defensively,” said coach Christy Johnson. “We don’t let many balls fall, but we let them do that tonight a little bit too much.”

Throughout the season the Cyclones have struggled to put teams away, building large leads only to watch them dwindle away, setting up nervous finishes to games.

Wednesday night was a different story. Iowa State finished strong in all three games. That new ability was on full display in the third game. Kansas hung close for awhile, but when the team hit full stride, they pulled away with a 12-4 run to close out the game and the match.

“[Finishing games] isn’t always easy to do,” Johnson said. “I thought we did a great job of that tonight.”

The team hasn’t put together a complete match, both offensively and defensively, since Boeve moved back to middle blocker, Johnson said. It has gotten progressively better since the switch, but the match against the Jayhawks was a prime example.

While the offense played well, the defense was a little rough. The team was aced four times by Kansas serves, and after averaging 15.51 digs per game coming in, the Cyclones were managing just 13.5 a game before coming up with 24 in the third.

“We came out a little flat tonight,” Boeve said of the team’s sloppy play. “It is nice to come out and win those matches in three, but a lot of times that won’t happen in the Big 12.”