Texas A&M Downs Iowa State in Saturday Afternoon Volleyball Action

Saturday, November 30

Ames, Iowa

TBA

Iowa State

Texas A&M

Texas A&M Downs Iowa State in Saturday Afternoon Volleyball Action

11.30.2002 | Volleyball

By: Iowa State University

AMES, Iowa - The Iowa State Volleyball team concluded the 2002 season with a 3-1 loss to Texas A&M, Saturday afternoon in Hilton Coliseum. Iowa State won game one, 30-25, before dropping games two, three and four (29-31, 24-30 and 26-30). Sophomore Brittany Dalager paced ISU with 19 kills and 20 digs, her 12th double-double of the season. The loss moves the Cyclones overall record to 10-22 and 1-19 in league play. A.D. Achilefu pounded 18 kills on the day to help the Aggies improve to 20-9 and 12-8 in Big 12 play.

On senior day, Mandi Harms had a stellar offensive game with 17 kills, while Sara Stribe had 16 digs and 45 assists. Junior Renae Pruess had 11 kills and seven digs, while junior Dana Koziol added 18 kills for the Cyclones. Stribe now has 2,938 assists for her career, which is good for second place all-time on ISU's career assist list.

Texas A&M hit .206 from the floor, compared to Iowa State's .151 for the match. The Aggies pounded 66 kills to ISU, 59 and also had 87 digs to the Cyclones' 73.

In game one, the Cyclones came out ready to play as they pounded 19 kills to Texas A&M's 15 and had 16 digs to the Aggies' 12. But the Aggies hit a sizzling .344 from the floor compared to ISU's .244. Harms pounded seven kills in game one, while Dalager added three. The Cyclones took game one, 30-25.

"I thought the kids did a great job in game one" Head Coach Linda Crum said. "They came to play, they played relaxed and very competitive. The push they made at the end was very efficient in terms of the blocking and hitting. I thought we played game one very well."

Game two was another competitive game for the Cyclones. The Aggies held a slight kill advantage, 16-15, and hit .163 compared to ISU's .137. The Aggies also had more digs than ISU, 26-21. But Cyclones outblocked their opponent, 8-6. Dalager had seven kills in game two, while Harms added three. Texas A&M went on to win the second game, 31-29.

Game three was all Texas A&M as it hit .156 from the floor compared to a -.024 clip from the Cyclones. The Aggies had 14 kills to Iowa State's 11. The Aggies had just seven errors, however, to the Cyclones 12. Texas A&M won game three, 30-24. In game four, the two teams played a pretty even match, as both teams hit above .200. The Cyclones outhit the Aggies, .238 to .204. The difference, however was the kill total. Texas A&M pounded 21 kills to ISU's 14. The Cyclones found themselves down by as much as seven at different points in the match, but managed a huge rally to come within one. The Cyclones dropped game four, 30-26, and the match, 3-1.

"I was very pleased with the effort the kids gave in this match," Crum said. "I thought our passing was excellent. It allowed the middle blockers to do somethings as well as open up or outside hitters for some big kills. I thought we did an awesome job blocking and we were very aggressive with our serving. I thought Brittany (Dalager) was awesome. She was just very focused and played some significant minutes for us. She had a huge double-double (19k, 20d) for us. I thought Renae (Pruess) did a great job for us with her serving and her awesome backcourt attack. Overall this season, I am pleased with the way we went after the nonconference portion of our schedule and really played competitively and aggressively. In Big 12 play, although it didn't generate to wins, I thought we played a lot better and a lot more competitively when you think about how many game ones we won and how many games came within two or three points. All of that is significant and gives us something to build on for next year."