Despite a tremendous effort Wednesday night, the ISU Volleyball team came up short against the Kansas State Wildcats. “I felt good coming into today’s game,” said senior Stacy Nicks. “I think we had a definite chance, especially after watching them.” Kansas State took control right from the start. During the first match, Kansas State capitalized on open holes in the Cyclone defense and dominated game one with a 15-6 win. Going into the second match, the Wildcats had a problem serving into the net. For Iowa State, their biggest problem of the night seemed to be coming up with the digs from K-State’s hits. “Digs are fundamental,” said Sarah Stribe. “We know we need to work on that if we’re going to compete in the Big 12.” Also during the second game, ISU’s Sarah Stribe, Stacy Nicks, and Nanette Allen set up a barricade at the net. “We were very dominate at the net,” Stribe said. “That’s going to be one of our strengths, so we capitalized on that.” The Wildcats took game two in a 15-5 victory. The Cyclones were a different team going into game three. Iowa State worked the fundamentals and forced K-State into a time-out after gaining control with a 5-1 lead. Unfortunately, K-State came from behind to win the final match of the night with a score of 15-9. “In the locker room between games 2-3 we had set a goal to come out here and get ten points in the third game,” said Coach Linda Grensing. “I thought we were going to do that, I thought we’d break that barrier.” Throughout the night, Iowa State’s floor was controlled by young and inexperienced players. “In game three, there were times we had four freshmen and two sophomores on the court. That’s pretty young to be completely steady throughout the whole game,” Grensing said. The night was not a total loss though. Individually, the Cyclones gave tremendous efforts from around the floor. “I was pleased with Sarah Rollman’s play,” Grensing said. “I thought she hit very efficient as an outside hitter.” Rollman led the Cyclones with 15 kills and eight digs. She also hit .292 from the floor and added two solo blocks. Senior leader Stacy Nicks tallied two solo blocks and assisted in four block assists to help her team at the net. Iowa State claimed a 12-3 advantage over the Wildcats in blocks for the night. “Tonight we started off pretty slow, but gradually we got better game by game,” said Stribe. “In the third game we were fairly competitive up until 10 [points] and then we just dropped off so we didn’t play as well as we’re capable of, but as the match went on, we did do better.” Game three seemed to please the Cyclone players as well as Coach Grensing. “We came out in game three with the presence to block some balls right away,” Grensing said. ” I think our outside hitters did a great job hitting some great shots. We served with some confidence and then we got in the rotation where we had a young group of people in the front row and made some net errors. We just didn’t get our confidence back from that and I think that was critical, but we still brought the ball back on our side and we still started getting some points back.” Iowa State went into Wednesday night’s game leading the all-time series against Kansas State with a 33-24 history record. The Wildcats entered the game with 6-2 record and ranked 22nd. The Wildcats’ leading contributor of the night was Liz Wagner as she tallied 15 kills and eight digs over the Cyclones. Wagner hit .333 from the floor and was among four Wildcats to hit over .300. “Kansas State’s a great team and they’re very well coached,” Stribe said. “We knew coming in that they’d be a good team and we’d have to play well. You have to come with your `A’ game when you play teams like this and we didn’t.” Even though Kansas State led the game, the Wildcats changed around their tactic of play against Iowa State. “We made them change around their offense and that was definitely a plus for tonight,” Stribe said. Iowa State outplayed the Wildcats in some areas. “As a team, we outblocked Kansas State,” Grensing said. “We didn’t outdig or outhit them in the big picture. Last year, Stacy Nicks was fourth in the Big 12 overall in blocks per game and that’s a strength in her. Where it’s very natural for Sarah Rollman to be a blocker and she does a great job doing it.”