The Iowa State volleyball team swept the visiting Kansas Jayhawks in three games on Wednesday night in their last home match, but the score didn’t tell the whole story.

Before play started, an emotional squad and coaches paid respect to the trio of senior Cyclones at their “old home” of the Physical Education Building in front of a capacity crowd. The fans in the gym were on their feet applauding the efforts of seniors Dana Mucha, Steph McCannon and Kirstin Hugdahl and all that they’ve done for ISU volleyball.

Flowers and gifts were exchanged along with plenty of hugs before the Cyclones got down to the business of clenching another victory on the path to the Big Eight Tournament.

But it wasn’t as easy as the score would suggest.

Kansas, who has been dwelling in the cellar of the Big Eight Conference at seventh place with only one conference win all season, jumped out in front of the Cyclones early in the first game 3-1.

Head Coach Jackie Nunez said the Jayhawks were playing above par, but her Cyclones were slow to start and eventually Kansas couldn’t sustain their intensity to finish the win.

“Kansas played well, certainly in the first part of game one, but they couldn’t sustain it,” Nunez said. “As the match went on, we just got better and better. I thought that Kansas struggled to keep up with our tempo and some of the things that we kept generating.”

In the first game, Kirstin Hugdahl put her name on another list of ISU elites. She became only the fourth Cyclone ever to register over 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs in a career.

With that announcement during a Cyclone timeout and a characteristic Hugdahl hammer to start things off, ISU took their first lead of the match. The rest of the game was a see-saw battle of monstrous kills and tremendous defense, but Iowa State came out on top 15-11.

The momentum from the first game followed the Cyclone netters into the second game. ISU rolled to an early 8-1 lead and seemed to be heading to an easy second game victory, but the Jayhawks clawed back into the game 10-9.

Nunez decided to take starting setter Jen Lansink out of the lineup and let freshman Julie McGrath direct the offense for the rest of the match. The switch proved to be the key to victory as the Cyclones allowed Kansas no more points en route to a 15-9 win.

Tremendous blocking and a sound offensive attack contributed to the match-clenching third game win for the Cyclones. ISU rolled to a decisive 15-5 victory over Kansas.

“This is a very significant win for us because we’re trying to keep our second place position in the conference,” McCannon said.

“I thought we generally played an aggressive, solid match,” Nunez said. She commended her team on their hitting and blocking skills and said the passing also helped their strong offensive showing. The Cyclones had a team hitting percentage of .279 — one of the best of the season.

“We were definitely looking to hit in the 20s. We’ve been needing to do that, and we did that tonight. I’m real pleased about that,” she said. “This was one of our better hitting performances in awhile.”

“Our middle hitting was very aggressive. Both setters, Jen and Julie, did a good job of getting the ball to our middles.”

Middle hitters Mucha and junior Rachelle Frese had extraordinary performances. Mucha notched 13 kills and committed only one error in 22 attacks for a .545 hitting percentage while Frese tallied 9 kills and no errors in 13 attempts for a .643 hitting percentage.

McCannon added 12 kills and 13 digs. Hugdahl contributed eight kills and 13 digs.

“I didn’t necessarily see anything different than any of their other performances this year. They play hard all the time. That’s the story of their careers,” Nunez said about her seniors last home match.

Lansink had 30 setting assists and McGrath tallied 15 for the Cyclones.

ISU is in preparation for the Big Eight Tournament over Thanksgiving weekend in Omaha and Nunez thinks her team has a good chance to make the finals in the contest.

“We are continuing to work on several areas of improvement like cutting down on our hitting errors and remaining stable in all of our areas of play. My team definitely knows what we need to improve on. Then we’ll definitely be prepared for the Big Eight Tournament.”

The last two years at the tournament Iowa State has fared well, but not well enough to make the cuts for the NCAA. This year a second place finish may do the trick.

“If we fail and become a bubble team, the decision is out of our hands. If we finish second, then we’ve controlled our destiny,” Nunez said.