Wednesday night the ISU volleyball team faced up against their intrastate rival, the UNI Panthers.

Northern Iowa took the match winning 15-6, 15-6, 15-7 over the Cyclones.

“Last year I think they beat us in about 40 minutes in the three game match,” said ISU Volleyball Coach Linda Grensing. “This year UNI is a younger team, they still have their good outsides, but they are younger in the middle so they look like a different team this year. On the other side, we’re a much better team. We have a lot of youth on the floor, but we’re much better then we were a year ago.”

It was obvious to see that the Cyclones were a different team last year, playing right along with Northern Iowa in the defeat.

“The biggest thing that I saw was what the team looked like before and after I called a time-out,” Grensing said. “I just asked them what they wanted the match to be and told them that we can be as competitive as UNI, but we just let them control things.”

The matches went back and forth point wise for both teams. The Cyclones struck first in game one and continued to play good volleyball.

“We made UNI play,” Grensing said. “I think UNI’s a good team, but we helped them out a lot in terms of our inconsistency where we played strong and put it on the line. Then we stepped back, and put it back on the line. We just need to get more consistent and play with it on the line and play aggressively for an entire game.”

Leading the way for the Cyclones was Stacy Nicks. Nicks contributed 10 kills, seven digs and three blocks. Following closely behind was teammate Sarah Rollman. Rollman tallied seven kills and six digs. Julie Mitchell had a strong second game having three kills on only five attacks, and two block assists.

Team wise the Cyclones out hit the Panthers 113-106. It was the third time this season the Cyclones out hit their opponents.

Kim Kester, Kim McCaffrey and Jill Arganbright were the key factors for the Panthers. Kester finished out the night with 17 kills, two aces, and six digs. McCaffrey finished with nine kills and seven digs, while Arganbright tallied twelve digs.

The Cyclones will resume play in the Big 12 on Saturday as they head to Waco, Texas to match up against the University of Baylor at 7 p.m.

“Baylor is a good team who is much younger than they were last year,” Grensing said. “Their strength is being able to handle the ball well and they run a quick offense so our task will be to follow our hitters. Beyond that we need to serve well, and that will force them to be more predictable in their offense which will help us.”