It’s her third year of tenure at Iowa State, and volleyball teams around the state have yet to figure out how to beat Christy Johnson.

By sweeping the Drake Bulldogs 3-0 (30-19, 30-14, 30-14) Saturday night at the Knapp Center in Des Moines, Johnson pushed her career record to 8-0 against in-state opponents.

“It shows we’re winning games against good competition,” Johnson said, “and I hope that we can continue playing well against them because it’s so important for the recruiting battle as well.”

The Cyclones (6-4) breezed through matchups against their in-state counterparts this past week, not dropping a single game and rarely trailing to Northern Iowa, Iowa or Drake.

The weekend marked a stand-out performance for junior Mary Bisenius, who was named MVP of the Drake Classic after leading the Cyclone offense with 3.5 kills per game and a .386 hitting percentage in the tournament.

After seeing their fair share of offensive struggles in the first week of the season, the Cyclones have become more balanced and saw four players register double-digit kills over the weekend.

“Our star players aren’t going to be on every single night,” Bisenius said. “Having a balanced offense like this will throw a lot of our opponents off, giving them more people to worry about instead of one person to key on, which will give us a much bigger advantage.”

Bisenius and sophomore setter Kaylee Manns were both named to the All-Tournament team.

“It’s nice knowing I can just set anyone and they can get a kill,” Manns said. “It takes a lot of pressure off me.”

Iowa State put an exclamation point on the weekend Saturday, hitting .348 against the Hawkeyes (5-3) in the afternoon match and a blistering .494 against the Bulldogs (2-5) in the nightcap, the third-highest match hitting percentage in team history and the best since 1985.

The Cyclones also put on a show defensively by outblocking Iowa 15.5-to-3 Saturday afternoon.

“We did a great job of recognizing the way their offenses worked,” Johnson said. “We executed the game plan, stayed alert and were able to key on the right players.”

The weekend began on a strong note for the Cyclones, as they took down No. 21 LSU (8-1) in a four-game thriller (26-30, 30-22, 30-26, 30-22) Friday night. Bisenius led the Cyclones with a career-high 17 kills while freshman Ashley Mass recorded a career-high 21 digs in her first collegiate start at libero.

“[LSU] is very athletic, and is going to be similar to a lot of teams in the Big 12,” Johnson said. “It is really good to know we’re able to matchup with a team like that.”

The Cyclones have now won four straight heading into their first conference match of the season, a road game in Waco, Texas, against the Baylor Bears (7-3).

– Matt Gubbels and Nick Paulson contributed to this article