The Sooner volleyball team took sole possession of third place in the Big 12 by beating the No. 14 Iowa State Cyclones 3-1 Saturday at McCasland Field House.

OU had not beaten a ranked team all season.

The Sooners were shut out by the Cyclones on the road Sept. 25 and also lost matches at home against ranked foes Texas and Nebraska. Even though the team is having one of the best seasons in program history, OU has been searching for a signature win for 2010.

The Sooners found it Saturday. A combination of preparation and a little added aggression proved to be just what the team needed to finally pull off an upset victory.

“This was a great win for us,” junior hitter Caitlin Higgins said. “We’d actually been tied for third with them, so we had been looking at them for a while and scouting their tendencies. We played with a lot of fire, and it feels really good.”

It was clear early that the match would be a battle. The teams were neck and neck all the way in the first set. OU had a chance to finish it, but Iowa State came out on top 28-26 to take a 1-0 advantage.

Fortunately for the Sooners, it was the only highlight of the match for Iowa State.

The Sooners got out to a 12-9 lead in the second set before the Cyclones rallied back to within one. From that point, OU took control and never looked back. Sophomore hitter Morgan Reynolds started things off with a kill to take a two-point lead. Senior middle blocker Sarah Freudenrich and junior hitter Suzy Boulavsky followed up with a huge double-block, and suddenly OU had all of the momentum.

Reynolds got two more kills in the set and Freudenrich added two blocks to lead the Sooners past Iowa State 25-21. The Sooners went into the intermission tied with the Cyclones, 1-1.

Coming out of the locker rooms, OU clearly had the momentum. After falling behind 0-1, Reynolds got another kill to jump-start things, and the Sooners quickly jumped ahead 3-1. Iowa State made a comeback midway through the match to make things interesting, but the Sooners — led by stellar play by Higgins and Boulavsky — came out on top 25-20 to take a 2-1 lead. Going into the fourth set, it was clear that the Sooners were controlling the tempo of the match.

“As the match went on, we just started being more aggressive and focusing on the things we could do offensively,” Higgins said. “That took away a lot of the things they had been doing and made us a lot more successful.”

The last set was the hardest for the Sooners to finish. The team rode the momentum from the previous set out to a 21-17 lead, but Iowa State came back to within one. The match could have gone either way, but Freudenrich got a kill to spark the Sooners. They finished off the Cyclones 25-23, finally finding a marquee win for this season.

OU does not have much time to celebrate, though. The team will be back in action against No. 5 Nebraska on Wednesday in Lincoln, Neb. — home of the nation’s longest sell-out streak in women’s collegiate sports. First serve is set for 7 p.m.