Iowa State volleyball runs into athletic Texas team

Sarah Henry/Iowa State Daily

Sophomore Hali Hillegas serving the ball for the Cyclones during their Match against TCU. 

Garrett Kroeger
November 11, 2017

Smiles filled Hilton Coliseum this time last year, when the Iowa State volleyball team was celebrating a 3-2 victory over the then-No. 5 Texas Longhorns.

This year, not so much.

After getting swept by No. 3 Texas less than a month ago, Iowa State looked to recreate the magic it produced in 2016. But it couldn’t.

While Iowa State lost in three sets last month, the Cardinal and Gold lost in four sets this time around to Texas (21-25, 18-25, 25-23, 18-25).

“I didn’t feel great about that [match],” said coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “There were stretches that [Iowa State] competed and then there were a lot stretches that we didn’t.

“Stretches where we really followed some game plan stuff, and then stretches that were like we just seemed to forget what we were doing.”

Despite Johnson-Lynch not feeling overly great about the entire match, it wasn’t like the Cyclones got completely dominated, even though if one were to take a look at the statistics they might assume that was the case Saturday night. Iowa State only hit a mere .141 hitting percentage, while allowing Texas to amass a .287 hitting percentage.

But that wasn’t the case.

In first two sets, the Cyclones would play the Longhorns tough up until the midway point of each set. In the first, Iowa State was tied with Texas, 15-15. Then in the second, the Cyclones were only down by two, 15-13.

There were a mixture of reasons why and how Texas ran away midway through each set. A big block here, a strong kill there and sometimes a momentum changing call as well. But Johnson-Lynch believed the reason why the Longhorns were able to pull away in sets one and two was because of their athleticism.

“Sometimes [Texas’] athleticism takes over,” Johnson-Lynch said. “Against a team that’s really athletic, you just have to be really good. You can’t be out of position too much.

“You can’t let a ball fall too much. You have to serve tough time and time again. The second half of that match, like most teams you start to crank it up, [the Longhorns] are very used to that.”

Against a team like Texas who possesses a block that features 6-foot-2 or taller players, shots that normally fall don’t, which was the case Saturday night. And because of that, the Cyclones’ outside hitters got frustrated at some points.

Although Iowa State was able to hurdle those obstacles in the third set, those barriers popped again in the fourth.

Entering this game, Johnson-Lynch believed that serving was going to be crucial to the outcome of the match. And it was. It was a big reason why the Cyclones won their only set of the night.

In the match against Texas, Iowa State had 11 serving errors, which is a drawback to serving tough. However, the Cyclones did tally eight service aces, six of which came fro.

“[Iowa State] went after it,” Hillegas said. “Last week, we were really trying to find our rhythm and still serving tough. This week, we really converted that into hitting and serving hard and with less errors. Maybe just finding spots that we weren’t finding last week.”

Along with serving tough, the Cyclones fought defensively against the Longhorns. They were able to create some good, long rallies. However, Texas was just the better team Saturday night.

“Texas is very good,” Johnson-Lynch said. “They are very physical. They make it very difficult to get a kill because they are so big at the net and then play pretty good backcourt defense.

“We ran into a good team. We weren’t good enough for long enough to beat them tonight.”