The Iowa State women’s volleyball team recorded a five-game marathon match victory in record breaking fashion over the No. 24 Colorado Buffaloes Saturday, snapping their week-long 12 game losing streak.

The Cyclones rolled to a first game win, 16-14, then found themselves clinging for life and the match after losing games two and three, 15-6 and 15-3.

Head Coach Jackie Nunez’s squad regrouped and claimed a 15-13 fourth game win and sealed the victory with a 15-10 rally score in the fifth game.

After knocking off the Buffs ISU stands at 12-7 overall and an impressive 3-1 in the Big Eight, which is good for second place behind Nebraska.

Nunez was happy with the upset of the Buffs and with the play of her team.

“The team played very well together. They were very emotional, very vocal. I’m just real proud of them, that they were able to come back off those two losses in games two and three to pull out a win,” Nunez said.

A balanced effort put forth by ISU both offensively and defensively was shown in the record books as the Cyclone netters notched two team records and two individual records in the match.

As a team, ISU garnered the team attack record with 250 attempts beating the old mark of 244. Defensively this year’s squad moved up to eighth place on the all-time dig chart with 117.

Individually, senior Steph McCannon continued to be a force defensively for the Cyclones as she broke the single match dig record with 41. The old mark of 40 was set in 1989 by Jenny York.

“Steph McCannon dug out of her mind. She was digging everything and that kept putting us into position to be able to terminate for points,” Nunez said.

McCannon said, “It feels good to have the record. I was surprised, actually. I didn’t know that I had that many digs.”

The other mark rewritten that night was by Sonya Van Helden. The junior had 65 hitting attempts which is good for seventh on the list.

Another feat Van Helden was responsible for that couldn’t be recorded in any record book was being tagged with the reason for the win.

Nunez felt switching Van Helden, usually a right-side hitter and blocker, to the left side outside-hitting position was the key to victory for ISU.

“Putting Sonya Van Helden to hit outside for us in the fourth game made all the difference in the world for us,” Nunez said. “I think Sonya came in and hammered balls and did a great job for us.”

“I just did my job. I did the best I could in the situation. Anytime we can beat Colorado, it’s a great feeling,” Van Helden said.

Although regular Kirstin Hugdahl hurt her foot in last week’s match against Minnesota, she did tally 13 kills and 12 digs for the Cyclones against Colorado.

Van Helden had a team-high 21 kills while McCannon had a second-best 18. Middle-hitter Dana Mucha served up three aces and10 kills at the net for ISU.

Junior setter Jen Lansink directed the offense for four of the five games taking over for starter Julie McGrath. Lansink had 38 assists and McGrath contributed 29 to the effort.

“I think Julie McGrath came out and ran one of the best displays of an offense that I’ve seen this year. She had Colorado’s block going everywhere,” Nunez said.

“Julie’s capable of that, but she just couldn’t sustain it, so our offense became a little more predictable. We couldn’t gel and that’s when I made the setting change in the second game.”