The Iowa State women’s volleyball team tried to take another win from the Oklahoma Sooners on Wednesday in the two teams’ second meeting, but failed in five games, 15-12, 6-15, 15-13, 12-15 and 11-15.

In the two teams’ first clash in Hilton Coliseum, ISU emerged victorious in four games. A balanced attack proved to be the key to victory against the Sooners. The second time around wasn’t as sweet for the Cyclones.

Despite jumping ahead of the Sooners in the first game, ISU couldn’t pull out a win. This is the first time all season the Cyclones have won their first game and have not gone on to win the match.

The difference between a win and a loss, according to Head Coach Jackie Nunez, was lack of a balanced offensive attack in the most recent match.

“We just struggled to generate any kills out of our middle attack. They [Oklahoma] knew every ball was going to be set outside so they camped out on us,” Nunez said.

The match went down to the line in a rally scoring fifth game, but ISU froze and watched the game slip from their grasp.

“The fifth game score got tight. They just shut us down. We got stuck in a rut and they rolled off four straight points to claim the victory,” Nunez said.

The Cyclones’ numbers in the stat books also proved Oklahoma should be on the winning end of things. ISU had a sub-par hitting performance only hitting a .164 percentage. The Cyclones only managed six kills in the fifth game and 63 overall as compared to Oklahoma’s 10 and 77, respectively.

“We experienced an offensive shutdown. We couldn’t terminate any kills to win,” Nunez said.

Some Cyclones who had great numbers in the battle include both outside hitters senior Steph McCannon and junior Sonya Van Helden. McCannon racked up 20 kills and 18 digs while Van Helden also picked up a double-double statistically with 21 kills and 16 digs.

“Sonya did very well in the first four games for us, but she couldn’t sustain it, which is understandable. It was her first time playing the outside hitter position for an entire five game match,” Nunez said.

The Cyclones are in the hunt for second place in the conference and a second seed at the Big Eight Tournament as the regular season is starting to wind down.

Oklahoma is nipping at the heels of Iowa State — they are a half game behind the Cyclone netters for second place.

“We’ll be in good position in the second or third seed, but we’re going to strive to not be thrust into the fourth position so we can avoid playing Nebraska in the first round of the tournament,” Nunez said.