With the Idaho State volleyball leading 23-12 late in the second game of its match with Montana State, head coach Chad Teichert made a substitution and brought in senior Kimberly Naut in place of sophomore Whitney Bartschi.

    Naut immediately got the Bengals to within one point of winning the set with a block, and one point later she closed it out with a kill.

    Those were the only points the entire night in which Naut saw the floor and her effort summarizes how the Bengals have played this season. No matter how much playing time someone gets, they make the most of it.

     That mentality has worked so far this season as ISU finds itself tied for first place in the Big Sky conference with a 14-2 record after a straight set 25-14, 25-13, 25-22 win over the Bobcats Saturday night in Reed Gym.

    “I think the cool thing about our team is that everyone can put the ball away,” Tressa Lyman said. “We have such a good team bench that we can put anyone in and they will perform well. It’s hard for teams to stop us because they cannot just shut down one person to win the game, they have to shut down five or six.”

    The Bobcats had the difficult task of trying to stop a Bengals attack that still remembered the Sept. 29 five-set loss in the teams’ first meeting.

    “It was very, very nice to get back at them for beating us earlier,” Lyman said. “It felt so good to play well and earn the win.”

    ISU dominated the first two sets as the Bobcats had no answer for each of the Bengals’ big hitters.

    Jaclyn Hone-Hawkins recorded four kills in the opening set to lead the attack, but the key for the Bengals was the ability to get digs.

    Setter Lori Mendenhall and libero Kylee Searle were all over the floor in the opening set, diving after balls to keep rallies alive and sometimes using their heads, as shown by Mendenhall, to keep the ball from hitting the floor.

    In set two, the Bobcats had to stop the trio of Lyman, Breanne Van Every and Bartschi.

    On every set the Bengals had the ball going to one of the three players on the attack.     

    Lyman led the ISU with four kills in the set while Van Every and Bartschi recorded three each.

    ISU also made a point of stopping the Montana State attack by moving around the block. The Bengals recorded four block in the set and easily went into the break leading 2-0.

    With the match firmly in control, the Bengals appeared to have a bit of a letdown in the third set as the Bobcats raced out to a 4-1 lead and caught ISU off guard.

    Instead of getting flustered, the Bengals battled back to eventually tie the game at 10-10 after a kill from Alydia Fields. The score would be tied four more times before the end of the set, the last at 22-22, but ISU was able to score the final three points to close it out.

    “I think it was just a matter of playing volleyball,” Lyman said. “They came out a lot stronger in game three and we did not answer as quickly as we should have, but we worked together as a team and it worked out.”

    “When we are under pressure I feel like we all come together and look at each other and trust each other, and know that we can pull it out,” Bartschi said.

    Lyman and Van Every led the Bengals with 10 kills on the night. Hone-Hawkns finished with eight and Bartschi had seven kills.

    With the win the Bengals find themselves in the midst of a four-game winning streak in which the team has not dropped a set.

    ISU continues to be undefeated at home with just one match remaining at Reed Gym.

    Idaho State (20-5, 14-2) has won 20 games in a season for the first time since the 2003 season and moves into a tie for first in the Big Sky after Portland State lost to Northern Arizona.

    “I think we have a lot more that we want to accomplish,” Lyman said about the remainder of the season. “Right now we are playing well and we are excited to see what we can do and what’s in store.”

    ISU travels to Ogden to take on Weber State on Wednesday. The match begins at 7 p.m.