AMES – After dropping the first set of Saturday’s match against Central Florida 27-25, Iowa State opened a 12-3 scoring run to even the match.
The Cyclones’ run included nine consecutive points from the 13-13 mark in the middle of the set, their longest of the season behind five aces from senior middle blocker Tierney Jackson.
Jackson’s ace total is her new career high.
“I’m starting to wonder why [Jackson] hasn’t served more,” Iowa State head coach Christy Johnson-Lynch said. “When we put her to the right side, she wasn’t serving and tonight we ran a lot of points in her rotation.”
The 9-0 run tops both its match against Utah on Sept. 23, in which Iowa State strung together eight straight points, and the Sept. 5 matchup against Central Michigan, which featured seven in a row.
The second set victory was Iowa State’s 13th of the season and second in conference play, leaving only two matches in which it has lost the second set all year.
The Cyclones have yet to drop set two at home.
“After the first set, we knew it was time to come back with more,” junior middle blocker Pam McCune said. “We shifted our mindsets from casual into knowing every set matters.”
Both the first and third sets also featured long scoring runs. The Cyclones saw runs of 6-2 in the first, 8-3 in the third and 5-0 in the fourth.
“We knew that we had to keep pushing through and playing as a team,” freshman outside hitter Alea Goolsby said. “We knew that we had to come back and just keep it going.”
Goolsby, who contributed two kills to the second set total, ended the contest with 17 kills, having now recorded double-digit kill totals in the last eight matches.
“I try to bring a lot of energy to the team [every match],” Goolsby said. “I know they always have my back, and I’m always moving to try and improve.”
Prior to the match, Johnson-Lynch and the Cyclones had yet to drop a first set at home.
“I’m proud of how they kept at it,” Johnson-Lynch said. “Even though it wasn’t always pretty, you just have to do that sometimes.”
The Knights, plagued by errors, totaled five in the first, six in the second, seven in the third and four in the fourth.
Saturday’s match closed with a successful challenge by the Knights, which overturned the final point of the fourth set. According to Johnson-Lynch, the team found its rhythm in the final stages.
“They gave us a lot of breaks tonight,” Johnson-Lynch said. “They missed a lot of serves and I felt like they helped us out a lot, but we were pretty clutch at the end of a lot of those sets.”
Iowa State hits the road for matchups against Kansas State at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and against Kansas at 6 p.m. Friday.
