The Ames High Gym was packed with over 450 people as the Iowa State Volleyball Team put up a good fight against Texas A&M on Friday night, as the Aggies swept the ‘Clones in a three game match, 15-7, 15-11, 15-6.

Iowa State head Coach Jackie Nunez thought her team performed well, despite the loss.

“I thought that we played with a lot of heart and we played with a lot of effort. Generally, throughout the match, I was pleased with those aspects of our play,” Nunez said. “I only had one senior on the floor for most of the time, and I thought that my younger players did excellent.

“We have been encouraging Staci Smith to go up and swing aggressively. We have been focusing on her defense lately in the past week, and I felt that she had improved,” Nunez said. “I thought that Staci really generated a lot of aggressive kills for us.

“I thought that Julie McGrath did a good job taking over the offense in games two and three,” Nunez said. “She does a good job mixing up the offense when we have good passing and good ball control.

“This was [Shellie Davis’s] first time starting and playing in an entire match. Texas A&M is a highly national ranked team, and a tough team in the Big 12, and I felt that she did a good job,” Nunez said. “Shellie did come in and held her own, blocking-wise, but Shellie just isn’t developed to where Rachelle [Van Scoyoc] is in terms of offense.”

Senior Rachelle Van Scoyoc had to sit out the weekend due to a back injury.

Many of the players strived for improvement during the match.

“We wanted to come out a lot better and play a lot better than what we did [against Oklahoma], and we decided tonight was the night we were going to do that,” said sophomore Staci Smith.

“We decided that we didn’t like how we have been playing up to this point in the season. Our main focus was to come out and play hard,” said sophomore Colleen Henican. “It is disappointing to lose, but at least we made a step up.”

“It felt good out there. We all had fun. Jen [Lansink] and Julie [McGrath] both did a good job setting, they were both mixing things up,” Henican said. “They did great, and our whole team played well.”

“I thought that we played really good. We kept fighting until the very end,” said freshman Shellie Davis. “I thought that it was awesome playing here, because even though there wasn’t a big crowd, it felt like it.”

“We played A&M really tough when we were at their gym. We just knew that if we could do it on the road, we could do it at home, and especially in front of the good crowd like we had tonight,” said senior Sonya Van Helden. “They gave us a lot of enthusiasm, and they were great supporters tonight.”

In game one, the Cyclones came on strong but were slowly taken more than by the Aggies heavy hitter, in a game that lasted over a half an hour.

Game two also stretched on for over a half an hour, as the Cyclones played a close game of catch-up, trailing the Aggies by only a point throughout most of the game. Game two marked the first time the Cyclones scored in the double digits this season against the Aggies.

The Aggies dominated the third game to take the match by establishing a good lead early on and building on it.

Sonya Van Helden led ISU in kills with 18, and Staci Smith was not too far behind with 15 kills. Colleen Henican added 7 kills, and had the team high in digs with 12. Jodi DeVries had a team high three service aces for the night.

Texas A&M had four players in the double digits in kills: Kristie Smedsrud leading with 17, Page White with 15, and Cindy VanderWoude and Stacy Sykora each adding 10. Iowa State had 43 kills to the Aggie’s 60, and the Aggies posted a .311 hitting percentage to Iowa State’s .175.

Both setters for ISU saw action, with senior Jen Lansink having 13 assists in the first game, and sophomore Julie McGrath having assists in games two and three. Farah Mansik had 40 assists for the Aggies.

The Iowa State Volleyball team faced their second challenge from the south on Saturday night against the Texas Longhorns before a packed crowd of over 1,200 for Parents’ Night in the Ames High Gym.

Texas Head Coach Mike Haley thought that Saturday night was one of their best games all season.

“I am really pleased. I thought that we were in rhythm throughout the entire match, something that we have worked really hard to do,” Haley said. “I thought that we played better than we have been playing. I wouldn’t fault Iowa State at all. I thought that we were exceptionally good tonight.

“I wasn’t happy with our seven hitting errors in game two. I feel we need to keep our hitting errors down to three or four per game at the most if we want to do well. I would have liked to have a better second game,” Haley said. “I was really pleased with eight kills for 16 attempts in the first game with one error.”

ISU Head Coach Jackie Nunez felt that they were a tougher challenge in Ames than at home.

“[Texas] definitely played better tonight here than they did when we played them at Texas,” Nunez said. “They ran a good middle attack, and they have extremely talented outside hitters.

“I felt that my team was very frazzled. They had a hard time focusing and had a hard time getting into a good game rhythm,” Nunez said. “We had a couple strings of solid execution in game two, but other than that we just did not play well.

“This was very different from last night’s performance. At this point, I just wanted to play hard, to come out and play hard with a lot of heart,” Nunez said. “They need to learn how to do that back to back, they need to do that Friday, they need to do that Saturday.

“It really hurt us tonight not having Rachelle Van Scoyoc. We needed a middle attack desperately, and were not able to generate a middle attack with either Jodi DeVries or Shellie Davis,” Nunez said. “Our offense was very, very predictable.

“We struggled. We made so many errors tonight. We struggled to do anything very well tonight,” Nunez said. “It wasn’t difficult for Texas to get into a good rhythm against us tonight. They did a good job of exploiting a lot of our weaknesses.”

The first game foretold the rest of the evening as the Longhorns racked up eight points before the Cyclones nailed their first. The Cyclones had a tough time in the game, getting 10 errors to Texas’ one, enabling the Longhorns to take the game, 15-2.

The second game offered little relief for the Cyclones, having the lead once in the game, but the Longhorns buckled down after receiving several errors and took the game, 15-6.

Texas had their rhythm set as they clobbered the Clones in the third game, 15-2, to take the match in three. In a game very much like the first, Texas had nine points chalked up before ISU scored.

The numbers were not too high for either team on the stat sheet as the entire match flew by in less than an hour.

Staci Smith led ISU with six kills, and Colleen Henican added four kills, six digs and the team’s only service ace.

The Longhorns almost doubled the ‘Clones in kills, 30-16, and in assists, 25-14.

No one from the Cyclones posted a positive hitting percentage, with the team average a -.117.