The Iowa State volleyball team entered Sunday’s rematch with Baylor fresh off a 3-2 comeback victory for the Cyclones on Saturday. Iowa State was looking for another win and a 4-0 start in conference play.
Match two proved to be different, as Baylor came out of the gates as the aggressor. The Bears changed up their game plan, and it worked, finishing the Cyclones in three sets.
Iowa State did hang around for a while in all three sets. Set two saw Baylor only gap the Cyclones by three points. Despite their efforts, the Cyclones could not bridge the gap and lost in a clean sweep (25-18, 25-22, 25-17).
Head coach Christy Johnson-Lynch commented on the aggression from Baylor and the differences in play from both teams from Saturday to Sunday.
“I thought we passed okay. I thought they passed really well,” Johnson-Lynch said. “We could not slow them down. They brought it today, and I thought they were ready to go and made some good adjustments.”
Baylor out-muscled Iowa State the whole match. The Bears tallied 50 kills to the Cyclones’ 37 and forced Iowa State into six more attack errors.
Johnson-Lynch talked about trying to get stops defensively and trying to get the offense rolling.
“It starts with the serve. When you serve tough it makes you tough,” Johnson-Lynch said. “Sometimes I thought our shot selection and decision on attack was pretty iffy.”
In Saturday’s match, sophomore Maya Duckworth exited with an apparent injury. When asked about her status, Johnson-Lynch said it was “just cramping, so no big deal. She’s ready to go.”
Good to go she was. Duckworth was a driving force to try and spark the struggling Cyclone offense. Her nine kills combined with the 10 from Nayeli Gonzalez totaled half of the kills for Iowa State.
Iowa State split the series with Baylor 1-1 and now sits 3-1 in conference play. Up next for the Cyclones is Texas Tech, a team that Johnson-Lynch believes is just one of the many strong teams that Iowa State will play during its Big 12 schedule.
“Tech is always hard to play. They’re always scrappy; they play really hard,” Johnson-Lynch said. “Every match in the Big 12 in our schedule is incredibly tough over the next couple of weeks.”
Johnson-Lynch added that the best thing her team can do every week is “battle point-to-point and keep grinding.”
The Cyclones will host the Red Raiders at 6:30 p.m. Friday, and the match will be streamed on ESPN+.
