DES MOINES — The ISU women’s cross-country team is fresh off its first victory of the season. The Cyclones win, however, didn’t feature the runners normally seen in their regular lineup.

Iowa State ran only one senior in Friday’s Bulldog 4K Classic meet in Des Moines. The other six runners were underclassmen — many of whom were competing in their first collegiate race.

“I just think that there’s so much nervous energy that comes with the first meet of the year, let alone your first collegiate race,” said ISU coach Andrea Grove-McDonough. “This just kind of helps them go through the routine and get rid of those first-time nerves.

“Then when they step up to those bigger meets, they will feel a little bit more confident.”

Sophomore Taylor McDowell finished sixth and ran in her first meet as a Cyclone. She finished with a time of 13:05.93 and was the third on the ISU squad to finish the race.

“With it being my first race, I just wanted to go out there with confidence and have fun,” McDowell said. “It felt pretty good. Hopefully I can continue that through the rest of the season.”

Junior Erin Valenti, who won the race overall, was having some health issues earlier in the week. After a slight IT band issue, she didn’t have the chance to run prior to the race.

“We weren’t really sure where she was at, so we brought her out here to see how she is feeling,” Grove-McDonough said. “I was really pleasantly surprised, especially because I thought she executed her way through the race very well. She handled it really well.”

This year, the Cyclones have 17 underclassmen on the team, many of whom have little to no experience.

While the meet was only 2.5 miles, the team left the majority of its top runners at home. Grove-McDonough hopes the runners who did race can get the experience they need to improve and help the team out later in the season.

“We have a lot of young girls on this team. The ones who ran today are a bunch of women who are trying to get into the top group,” Grove-McDonough said. “Some of these runners have the ability to do that by the end of the season. I’m very excited about where we’re headed as a team.”