A victory tonight against Iowa State would be a landmark for Kansas University’s volleyball team for two reasons.

First, winning the 7 p.m. match in Ames, Iowa, would guarantee the fifth-place Jayhawks (17-7 overall, 9-6 Big 12 Conference) a .500 season in Big 12 play with four matches left.

Second, it would mark coach Ray Bechard’s 100th victory at the helm. He is 99-79 in six seasons at Kansas.

Bechard said hitting the century mark would be nice, but he was far more concerned about winning than earning personal recognition.

“It would mean more to be 10-6 in the conference after Saturday night,” Bechard said. “Those milestones are fun. I hope the next time around it won’t take so long to get to the next one.

“It’s been so rewarding watching this program grow and mature, and we’re to a point now where we’re about to have a breakthrough and we need to make it happen.”

The KU schedule looks ideal for such a scenario. The Cyclones (3-13, 11-16) are last in the Big 12, while the Jayhawks also have remaining matches against bottom-tier teams Texas Tech (3-13, 11-14) and Baylor (4-11, 12-17).

Kansas won the previous meeting with Iowa State, 3-0 (30-21, 31-29, 30-19), last month in Lawrence, but senior Abbie Jacobson made it clear the Jayhawks weren’t prematurely chalking up a win.

KU is 3-0 in November, and Jacobson said the Jayhawks wanted to continue the strong finish.

“You can’t take anybody lightly with rally scoring,” she said. “We just want to have a November to remember. That’s been our saying the whole month and so far it’s been that, so we don’t want to come out and let up, ever.”