Upsets are always prevalent in college sports. It seems any team can beat anyone on any given day, all they have to do is play their best, and not commit many mistakes. Unfortunately for the Cyclones, mistakes were the calling card in their loss to Texas.

The Cyclones were plagued by errors throughout the game in their 3-0 loss to the Longhorns. Over the course of the game, the Cyclones committed 27 offensive errors and also struggled to serve the ball, giving up six more service errors.

“Some of the errors just came from Texas being a good team, but there were a few where we just made bad decisions,” said ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch. “At times we played OK, but there were other times when we made the wrong choice, and that’s on us.”

Every team deals with errors in a game, but it seemed the Cyclones’ errors came at critical times. Two that stand out were in the third set after the Cyclones had tied it at 20-20. Iowa State seemed to be rallying a comeback when two straight hitting errors destroyed the momentum en route to the loss.

The Cyclones seemed to be constantly deflated by their errors, and lacked their usual energy and scrappiness. They could never seem to catch a break, even after tying many of the sets.

“We just lacked our usual fire,” said Morgan Kuhrt. “That sense of urgency we usual have to go hit everything was there at times, but not enough.”

Iowa State looked intimidated before even taking the court, and that could be due to the mind games Texas’ tries to play in warmups. The Longhorns were always creating as much noise as they can, whether finishing a spike or just bouncing the ball, they tried to get in the head of their opponents.

“You go watch Texas warmup and their bouncing the ball the way they do, and you can just think ‘How are we possibly going to beat these guys?'” Johnson-Lynch said. “I think we just got wrapped up in their athleticism.”

Once the errors started to pile up and doubt began to creep in, the Longhorn defense came in to finish the Cyclones. Texas leads the Big 12 in opponents’ hitting percentage, and they showed why in each set.

The Cyclones finished the game with four players finishing with a negative hitting percentage, meaning they committed more errors than they had kills.

Iowa State has a chance to recover before its two postseason tournaments and will try to get their minds off of their recent loss.

“We need to come in every day ready to work on the little things,” said Caitlin Nolan. “I think that’s what separated us from Texas, and if we can fix those things, we have a good chance to make a run in the tournament.”