Iowa State starting to see offensive improvements in win over TCU

Katlyn Campbell/Iowa State Daily

Jess Schaben, outside hitter, prepares to hit the ball towards Kansas State on Oct. 11 at Hilton Coliseum. The Cyclones won 3-0.

Garrett Kroeger
October 21, 2017

Over the past couple weeks, Iowa State volleyball coach Christy Johnson-Lynch has been stressing that the Cyclones need to be better offensively.

Along with stressing the offense needing to pick up the slack, Johnson-Lynch has talked about needing the team to add more to its tool box in terms of ways to attack. Can Iowa State hit the line, hit cross, hit the tip, hit the hands, and hit a roll shot? That is the type of stuff the Cyclones have been working on over the past several weeks.

On Saturday, Iowa State took on the TCU Horned Frogs and saw the offense shine along with additions to its toolbox in a three set victory (25-14, 25-17, and 25-16).

“We were relatively balanced,” Johnson-Lynch said. “I think that kind of opened some things up. I do think a big part of it is the range of our hitters.”

Senior right side Samara West hit some line shots and then changed it up with some cross shots on her way to nine kills. Then Iowa State’s left side hit some cross, line and roll shots.

Due to the mixture of shots, the Cyclones were able to throw the Horned Frogs’ block off course. That showed in Iowa State’s hitting percentage.

Against the Horned Frogs, the Cyclones tallied a .365 hitting percentage, which was one of the Cardinal and Gold’s best performances of the year. Plus, Iowa State outscored TCU 36-23 in kills.

“I thought we kept the block on the other side off-balanced,” Johnson-Lynch said. “If you can’t line up one spot and know where this one player is going to hit, you can have some troubles. So, I thought we had better range than we had lately.”

Johnson-Lynch was pleased to see the growth in the areas that Iowa State has been working on. But, the Cyclones have not just worked on their offense over the past several weeks. They have also been trying to improve its block and serving.

Both of those areas were exceptional against TCU.

After recording 19.5 blocks against the West Virginia Mountaineers on Wednesday night, Oct. 18, the Cyclones tallied 14.5 versus the Horned Frogs. Plus, Iowa State held TCU to a -.043 hitting percentage. Then in the serving department, Johnson-Lynch thought her squad served extremely tough on its way to eight service aces.

“We really dominated at the net,” Johnson-Lynch said. “And we really put pressure on TCU with our serve.”

Although Johnson-Lynch saw improvement out of her team this week, Iowa State is still not at the level she wants it to be at. Especially, offensively.

The Cyclones didn’t use this strategy a ton against the Horned Frogs, but they are working on utilizing combination attacks and their back row attack. If Jess Schaben and Alexis Conaway can help create even more of a presence in the back row attack, plus having better combination attacks, Iowa State can be a really good offensive team by the end of the season in Johnson-Lynch’s mind.

While the Cyclones still need to tinker with some small issues, they were pleased with having another strong offensive outing. Especially with them heading into the second half of Big 12 play.

“It’s a great feeling,” said setter Monique Harris. “Especially for me, just having all the confidence in everybody going into the second half of conference play is really, really big. Knowing that I can feed anyone on any certain night is wonderful.”