The ISU women’s volleyball team will try to improve upon its 9-5 record when it travels to College Station, Texas, on Saturday to face the Texas A&M Aggies in a Big 12 Conference match.

The season has been a success with the Cyclones surpassing their win total from a year ago, when it won just four matches.

“We started off well this season,” head coach Linda Crum said. “We set a goal to be close to 10 wins at this point and we are around that, so I feel good about our start.”

Freshman Amanda Craig is happy about the start, but said there’s still a lot to be desired.

The Cyclones lost in three games to Kansas State Tuesday.

“We’re off to a pretty good start but our conference record hasn’t started off as good as we wanted,” Craig said.

Crum said she realizes her team has had a slow start in the Big 12 Conference, but is confident that progress has been made in each match.

She said her team competed well in their last Big 12 match against Kansas State, but she wants her team to focus more on winning now.

“In the conference, the pace is much faster, but I think that we will be able to pick it up and win some matches,” Craig said.

The Cyclones go into their match against Texas A&M with the burden of a 14-match conference losing streak, but they have no problems motivating themselves to put an end to the skid.

“It’s very easy to motivate ourselves, because we have a much better team this year,” Crum said.

Craig, who had nine kills and nine digs against the Wildcats to lead the team, said she has a routine she goes through, and she said it should help break the losing streak some day.

“I try and focus before the game on things that I need to work on as an individual and direct that toward the team,” Craig said. “If we play the best we can, we should be able to beat these teams.”

Crum said that the strong point of her team and the keys to their early success have been the result of solid blocking, which forces a very low hitting percentage for their opponents. She has also been very pleased with her team’s ball handling and balanced offensive attack.

The Cyclones must keep it up if they expect to stay with the Aggies, Crum said.

“We need to be consistent with ball handling, pass the ball very well and serve very aggressively,” she said.