Iowa State seeks 4th win in last 5 Cy-Hawk volleyball matches Wednesday against Iowa

AMES — Depth can be a blessing and a challenge.

Just ask Iowa State’s veteran volleyball coach Christy Johnson-Lynch, who’s played everyone on her roster in five matches this season entering Wednesday’s 6:30 p.m. Cy-Hawk match against Iowa at Hilton Coliseum (ESPN+).

“Just a work in progress,” said Johnson-Lynch, whose Cyclones (3-2) have won three of the past four meetings with the Hawkeyes (4-1). “We have a lot of people that can contribute.”

That all-hands-on-court trend likely will continue in the Cy-Hawk match and beyond — and ISU’s players are cool with that all-inclusive approach as individual roles are defined and the best lineups are cemented.

“Fifteen strong, we always say,” junior setter Morgan Brandt said.

The Cyclones already have faced ample adversity this season, as four of their matches have gone a full five sets — and their losses came after building leads of 2-0 against Illinois and 2-1 against UNLV.

“I think it just teaches us, if anything, to keep fighting because in those fifth sets, things might not always go your way, but you don’t have a lot of points to work with, so you’ve gotta fight right off the bat just to get things to go your way,” junior outside hitter Faith DeRonde said.

Three native Iowans — Brandt (Sumner), DeRonde (Oskaloosa) and Kiersten Schmitt (Epworth) — dot ISU’s roster, but they’re determined not to let the typical Cy-Hawk buzz affect their preparation or performance.

“It’s going to be more of a mental game for us just because there are so many fans and you can get caught up in the emotions of the game,” DeRonde said. “We know we have the skills. We just need to hone in on those things and (not) let our emotions get the best of us.”

That doesn’t mean she and her teammates don’t enjoy the charged atmosphere. The Cyclones beat the Hawkeyes, 3-1, in the last Cy-Hawk match at Hilton in 2022 — and the event attracted 5,015 fans, the third-largest crowd in ISU history.

“I think it’s great for our game, great for our program, great for volleyball in the state,” said Johnson-Lynch, who has guided the Cyclones to the NCAA tournament in 16 of the 19 seasons she’s helmed the program. “So we want to play that up, too, while, at the same time, treating it like another match.”

So the mixing and matching will continue as Johnson-Lynch and her staff seek to turn ISU’s quality depth into its best lineup combinations preceding the onset of Big 12 play in less than three weeks.

“We’re playing lots of good teams, so we’re getting a lot of good information,” Johnson-Lynch said. “We will figure it out.”

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