AMES, Iowa – Iowa State celebrated Senior Night with a 3-0 (25-21, 25-22, 25-22) win over Kansas in the regular season finale for the Cyclones on Saturday night at Hilton Coliseum. ISU, which finishes the regular season tied with Texas A&M for fourth in the Big 12, awaits its postseason fate with the NCAA Selection Show being held Sunday evening at 9:00 p.m. on ESPNU.
The Cyclones (19-12, 11-9 Big 12) struggled despite picking up the victory, hitting just .190 as a team against the Jayhawks (13-16, 7-13), who wrapped up their season with the loss.
Iowa State head coach Christy Johnson was disappointed with the struggles, but pleased to get the win.
“I can’t quite put my finger on it,” Johnson said. “We just didn’t go out and get it. We tried to let Kansas make some errors and wish our way through that match, but we just need to continue to work hard. Now it’s do-or-die, so we are going to have to take advantage of every opportunity we get, and do a better job than we did tonight.”
The Cyclones were led by sophomore Victoria Henson and senior Jen Malcom, who finished with 15 and 11 kills, respectively. Henson posted her first career double-double, finishing with a career-best 11 digs. Henson also had a career-high three service aces, which all came in the first set.
Malcom went over 1,000 collegiate kills with an early third-set kill. The transfer from Syracuse has 619 kills since arriving at Iowa State.
Ashley Mass finished with a match-high 18 digs. Mass wraps up the regular season with 574 digs, just 32 digs shy of tying the single-season mark set by Steph McCannon in 1995.
Kaylee Manns had 41 assists, nine digs and four kills in the contest.
In the opening set, ISU got seven kills from Henson to overcome a .089 hitting percentage as a team. With the set tied at 3-3, ISU rattled off five straight, which included all three of Henson’s aces, to go up 9-3. Kansas closed the gap to one at 13-12 but the Cyclone lead grew to 19-13 following a Henson kill. The Cyclones held off the Jayhawks the rest of the way for the 25-21 win.
In the second, the Cyclones picked up the offense to the tune of a .279 hitting percentage en route to a 25-22 win. The set was tied at 19-19 following a kill from KU’s Brittany Williams. ISU answered with kills from Kelsey Petersen and Malcom to go up 21-19. Following a kill by Allison Mayfield to cut the lead to one, Manns sent one of her four kills to the floor to get another two-point lead. The teams teetered back-and-forth before Nicole Tate’s serve sailed wide to give ISU the win.
The Cyclones trailed by five at 19-14 in the final set before staging a furious comeback. ISU sliced into the Kansas lead with three straight points, two of which came on kills from Malcom and Rachel Hockaday, who finished with six kills and went over 300 on the season.
After Natalie Uhart’s kill put the Jayhawks back up by three, ISU scored six straight points to go up 23-21. After trading the next two points, Debbie Stadick wrapped up the regular season by slamming home a kill for the 25-22 win and the 3-0 sweep.
Kansas was led by nine kills from Uhart, who was playing in her final collegiate match. ISU held KU outside hitter Karina Garlington to just six kills and a -.028 hitting percentage. The sophomore torched the Cyclones for 29 kills in the team’s first meeting at Lawrence.
Johnson credited the players for getting numerous good touches on Garlington, giving the backrow defenders a chance to dig her shots.
“We wanted to make sure we had two blockers up on her,” Johnson said. “She gets a lot of kills just by using the block and using her hands. We just wanted to make sure we closed the block and had our hands all over so if we touched it would be a good touch, and I think we definitely did a good job of that.”
The Cyclones finished with eight service aces to just four for the Jayhawks. ISU out dug KU, 61-59, to overcome a 6-3 deficit on the block.
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