The Northern Iowa volleyball team backed up its stellar record on Tuesday night by downing the Iowa State volleyball team, 3-0.

The victory improved UNI’s record to 8-0, while Iowa State dropped to 2-2.

“UNI played a great match. I don’t think we played poorly, but we just didn’t play to our ability,” head volleyball coach Linda Grensing said following the match.

“One thing we didn’t do well was our hitting, said Grensing. “Our hitters didn’t do as well as I’ve seen them hit in practice.”

UNI started off strong right from the start, winning the first game, 15-2, to take a one game to none lead in the match.

ISU was unable to gain an advantage and suffered defeat in the next two games, 15-2, 15-5.

Errors played a big role in the outcome of the match.

The UNI Panthers only committed four errors on their way to a .537 hitting percentage. The Cyclones, meanwhile, hit -.043 with 20 errors. UNI hammered down 40 kills to ISU’s 19.

Iowa State was led by Sheila Lopez and Sarah Rollman, who both produced five kills in the effort. Lopez also added six digs on the way to the loss.

“UNI is a great team and they played very, very good,” said Lopez. “We knew their weakness was defense, but they just played great.”

“I don’t know if we were scared, but we did in practice what we couldn’t do in the game.”

The next match for the Cyclones will be on Friday, Sept. 17, when they take on the University of Florida in the first round of the University Centre Hotel Invitational.

Florida comes into the match ranked sixth in the national polls.

Looking ahead to this weekend, the Cyclones aren’t going to change a thing. “We’re going to stay focused on the same thing,” Grensing said. “Florida and UNI are similar. They’re both good teams that don’t make a lot of unforced errors which forces us to be more steady.

“Florida is a lot like UNI, only a step or two better,” said Grensing. “It will be a challenging match.”

Depending on the outcome of the first round game, the Cyclones will face either Butler or No. 9 ranked UC-Santa Barbara.

“The UNI match was good experience for us,” said Lopez. “We’ll be playing Florida and possibly Santa Barbara who are both ranked teams. So having a tough match already this week gives us an opportunity to see where we are at.”

“The difference in the tournament will be at the end of the columns,” said Grensing. “If our block, kill and dig totals match up to our opponent’s, we should be OK.”