The Lorenzen family tradition continues this year at Iowa State.

Nicole Lorenzen is a redshirt freshman for the Cyclone volleyball team.

Her distant cousin is Lynne Lorenzen, who played basketball at Iowa State and is the all-time leading scorer in U.S. prep basketball history, recording 6,736 points playing six-player basketball for Ventura from 1983-87.

She led Iowa State in scoring and rebounding her senior season.

“The only time I get to see Lynne is at family reunions,” Lorenzen said. “It’s really cool that she played basketball at Iowa State, but we weren’t close enough [for that to] have an influence on my decision to come here.”

That influence came from other family members. Lorenzen’s family has quite a history at Iowa State. Her father, Jerry, was a football player for the Cyclones back in 1979-82. The two-year starter at fullback blocked for two-time 1,000 yard rusher Dwayne Crutchfield. Her grandfather, Donn, was a two-year football letterwinner for Iowa State, earning academic all-conference honors in 1954.

Nicole, a Fremont native, went to high school at Eddyville-Blakesburg, where she was a two-time first-team all-conference pick. In addition, she was a first-team all-district selection and academic all-state honoree as a senior.

She totaled 288 kills and 84 blocks in her senior season.

Lorenzen, an outside hitter for the Cyclones, was a four-sport standout for the Rockets, starring in basketball, track and softball.

“In junior high, I started getting interested in volleyball,” Lorenzen said. “I always loved basketball in high school. The volleyball program in high school was weak, due to lack of numbers. I had three different coaches, and the program was not at a high level. We had little knowledge of the technical aspects of the game. In my sophomore year, we had a good coach, and we got more of the technical part for one year. Then the coach left.”

Lorenzen was recruited by Iowa State and redshirted for her freshman year.

This year, Lorenzen is contributing for the first time to the Cyclones’ cause.

Lorenzen did not see action against Iowa Sept. 5, but assistant coach Trent Herman said he had a conversation with Lorenzen during the second game of that match.

“I was just telling her about what Iowa was doing out on the floor, and that she needs to be ready to go into the lineup,” Herman said. “I pointed out to Nicole what shots to take, what the other team’s defense is doing and where to make the kills. It’s really a learning experience for her.”

Lorenzen didn’t play against Northern Iowa last week, but played in two games against Murray State and one game against West Virginia at the Bowling Green State Tournament in Bowling Green, Ohio over the weekend. In the final match of that tournament, against Bowling Green, Lorenzen played in four of the five games and had eight kills.

Lorenzen is currently fighting slight tendinitis in her right foot.

“It started bothering me last weekend,” she said.

She also had surgery on her right shoulder last December.

“I had some damage to a tendon in my rotator cuff,” she said. “So last spring, I worked on being a front-line player. I really enjoy doing the kills.”

Lorenzen said she is looking forward to the upcoming Big 12 Conference schedule.

“If we have the confidence in ourselves and can really play aggressively, then we will take a big step in moving up in the conference,” Lorenzen said.