A first game scare transformed into a four game defeat over intrastate rival Drake Tuesday night in Hilton Coliseum for the Iowa State women’s volleyball team.

Termed a “grudge match” by many Cyclone players, ISU wasn’t about to let the Bulldogs run off with a win this season after last season’s loss to the Division II neighbor.

“Last year we were beaten by them in four games, so it was revenge time in this rematch,” senior outside hitter Kirstin Hugdahl said.

“We lost to Drake last year and that hurt us a lot when it came down to NCAA selection. They were part of the reason we didn’t get a bid last year,” Head Coach Jackie Nunez said.

“That was considered a bad loss for us last year so we knew we had to beat them this year.”

Drake is currently ranked regionally along with the Cyclones and proved that they can run with the big dogs in the first game.

Drake started with the serve and never looked back.

The Bulldogs exhibited scrappy defense and a very fast-paced offense which caused problems for the Cyclones.

Two timeouts couldn’t bring the ISU efforts together as they suffered the first game defeat 9-15.

“We served horribly and passed horribly in the first game. We could not generate a good offense at all. Our offense just wasn’t being run like it needed to be run so I made the setting change,” Nunez said.

Nunez and her players regrouped from the first game scare and captured the next three games and the win decisively with the help of freshman setter Julie McGrath.

McGrath replaced starter Jen Lansink and took over the winning campaign racking up 34 assists leading the Cyclone netters to 15-1, 15-5 and 15-5 game victories to capture the win in four games.

“I thought Julie McGrath came in and set a very good match. I thought she was a very big reason why we beat Drake as decisively as we did. She made all the right choices at the right times,” Nunez said.

The senior outside hitters Hugdahl and Steph McCannon, who have been the squad’s regular one-two punch all year, agreed that McGrath’s play made a lot of difference in the match.

“She made some very good choices which made our offense run more smoothly,” McCannon said.

“We played more together as a team and executed more consistently in the last three games. Julie came in and made great choices. She ran our offense extremely well,” Hugdahl said.

Hugdahl didn’t do too shabby herself. She led the team in kills with 20 and garnered 13 digs on the defensive end of things for the Cyclones.

Nunez commended Hugdahl for her play.

“I thought Kirstin Hugdahl hit very well for us on the outside. She hit tonight like she had been a month ago. It’s good to see Kirstin back playing well again,” Nunez said.

Hugdahl suffered a foot injury in a match against Minnesota earlier this season and was struggling to get to the point she was at before she was hurt, according to Nunez.

Hugdahl ranks third in the Big Eight in kills with a 3.92 game average.

McCannon, who tallied a team- high 28 digs, keeps on charting more and more records with every match she plays. She leads the conference in digs with a 4.55 game average with 1,739 total digs in Big Eight play. McCannon is also eighth nationally in digs.

This recent win over Drake means much more to ISU than another “W” in the win column.

“This is a good win because in the big picture, we want to go to the NCAA’s,” Hugdahl said.

ISU next travels to Boulder to take on the Buffs of Colorado. This game is important to the final seedings of the conference tournament and possibly a ticket to “dance in December.”

“The Colorado match is going to be a critical match,” Nunez said. “If we beat Colorado, we will clinch second place in the conference.”

If the Cyclones should lose to the Buffaloes, then they will be forced into a tie-breaker situation with an Oklahoma team that is currently nipping at the heels of the Cyclones in the Big Eight conference race.