Cyclones Suffer First Loss at No. 15 UNI

Tuesday, September 13

Cedar Falls, Iowa

7:00 PM

Iowa State

Northern Iowa

Cyclones Suffer First Loss at No. 15 UNI

09.13.2011 | Volleyball

By: cyclones.com

STATS | HIGHLIGHTS | MEDIA CONFERENCE | PLAYER INTERVIEWS

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - No. 12 Iowa State (9-1) fell in three sets (24-26, 16-25, 18-25) at No. 15 Northern Iowa (10-1) on Tuesday night in the Cyclones' first loss of the 2011 season. Redshirt freshman Hannah Willms led the Cyclones with 10 kills on the night.

Iowa State struggled on offense throughout the match, never hitting above .111 in a set (the first) and finished the match with a .093 average, the team's lowest hitting percentage since hitting .089 at Nebraska last season.

The Panthers became the first team of the season to out-dig the Cyclones as well, winning the battle 53-46 and posted 13 blocks to Iowa State's four in the sweep.

The Cyclones started strong, taking a 5-0 lead in game one before UNI found its footing and came back to take the 10-9 lead. The teams dueled to the end of the game, exchanging three leads and tying seven times before Candice Burke scored the deciding kill for the Panthers.

Set two belonged to UNI from the beginning, as the home team collected three blocks to the Cyclones' one and hit .297 with three players posting three kills apiece to take the 2-0 lead.

Iowa State came back in set three, staying with the Panthers, although never leading, until UNI rattled off seven-straight points for a 17-10 lead that the Cyclones could not recover from. An ace from Bre Payton ended the set and the match.

The balanced attack by UNI included eight kills each from Krista DeGeest and Megan Lehman. Payton finished with seven kills for the match and collected 30 assists, one solo block and three block assists.

The Cyclones hit the road again this weekend, visiting Lincoln, Neb. to play No. 9 Nebraska on Saturday night at 8 p.m. CDT in the Devaney Center.