The Iowa State women’s volleyball team came home with a big win over the intrastate rival Iowa Hawkeyes in a hard-fought five game battle Wednesday.

ISU clenched the victory in the five games with the fifth game going into extra-point play 10-15, 15-12, 4-15, 15-13 and 21-19.

The Cyclone netters were not only avenging two years of defeat to the Hawks on the court, but were also claiming the win for ISU athletic fans everywhere including 13 straight years of losing to the foes on the football field.

“It felt good to finally knock off those Hawks. Anytime an Iowa State team, in whatever it is, can go out and beat those Hawkeyes, then it’s a victory for the athletic department,” head coach Jackie Nunez said.

“I was real proud of my team and how they hung in there in the fifth game. They were very poised, competitive and stayed very calm. They didn’t panic, they just executed. They kept hanging in there working to get kills and side-outs.”

In three of the five games, ISU battled back from behind to claim the match. At one point in the final game, the Cyclones were down 8-12 and went on to post a victory at 21-19.

Nunez was pleased with her team’s ability to gather self-confidence and pull through the match with a victory.

“It was an entire team effort because there were different points in the match where everyone got in the match. I have to credit the entire team,” Nunez said.

“They hung in there together and didn’t give up, kept plugging away and that showed a lot of character. Iowa made some critical errors and we didn’t. We just played real steady ball. We didn’t play spectacular, we just executed and were able to pull out the win.”

Although Nunez was happy with the win, she sees some room for improvement in her squad.

“We were struggling to pass. We had a lot of reception errors and we had an enormous amount of serving errors. Whenever you miss a lot of serves, it, of course, makes it very difficult to score points,” she said.

“We made some substitution changes, looked at some different combinations and I was pleased with how we came back in games two and four, and winning game five.”

Leaders for the cardinal and gold included seniors Dana Mucha and Kirstin Hugdahl and juniors Rachelle Frese and Jen Lansink.

Mucha and Hugdahl led the team in kills with 13 and 16, respectively. Mucha swung for a .380 percentage in the offensive end and Hugdahl registered 18 digs defensively for the Cyclones.

“Kirstin came alive at times hitting outside at some critical times for us and really ripped some kills for us at times when we needed it,” Nunez said.

Lansink directed the attack of the cardinal and gold garnering 43 assists. Frese was also potent for ISU.

“I thought Jen came in and did a very good job of keeping things stable and running the offense and making the choices at critical times.”

Coming off this win, ISU will travel to California to take part in the Cal-Poly Tournament against host Cal-Poly, UC-Santa Barbara and Pepperdine.

Nunez is hoping to take this winning attitude and momentum into the tourney.

“I think a team isn’t always going to come out and play at the top of their game and I was real pleased with my team that even though statistically we didn’t do as well, certain aspects of our game emerged,” she said.

“We blocked extremely well and we found ways to win and that’s a very important part of making sure that you’re going to have a winning season.”