April showers have brought nothing but inconsistency and on-the-fly scheduling changes for the ISU club baseball team.

During a rain-dominated VEISHEA weekend, Iowa State hosted Northern Iowa for three games, all played Sunday due to poor conditions Saturday, yet another schedule change for the Cyclones.

“Having a routine is almost nice and when you break from that routine, people will try to take advantage of that free time, and since it was VEISHEA week last weekend a lot of people went out and partied when they would’ve been playing baseball and that might have affected their play on Sunday; who knows,” said ISU senior Matthew Coffey.

The rain and snow mixture that fell Tuesday prevented Iowa State from practicing. The batters weren’t able to get batting practice, the pitchers weren’t able to keep loose and the fielders couldn’t get in any preparation on fielding grounders and throwing out base runners.

It’s a tough break for a team struggling heavily on defense. Errors have plagued the Cyclones so far this season. Coffey said there are two types of errors: physical and mental.

“Physical errors are OK because you know the guy gave it his all and he might have gotten a bad hop or something,” Coffey said. “Mental errors are the things that really kill you. So many errors made that day [Sunday] really frustrating and really long. When it’s like that, it’s not fun to play in the field.”

Teammate Shawn Lawler agreed, adding that it is a culmination of many factors leading to losses.

“We didn’t really get the hops, had some bad hops, ground balls in the outfield we didn’t get down on,” Lawler said. “Kinda hard to explain what exactly does it, practice, it could be just focus; just hard to tell.”

Iowa State has had its chances to break out of the slump, no doubt. It led 5-3 into the top of the seventh and final inning during game two against the Panthers, but Northern Iowa struck for four runs off pitcher Jeff Peterson and eventually won the game and the final one Sunday afternoon.

“We showed up Sunday for three games, everybody’s tired, probably hung over who knows,” Lawler said. “Just kinda happens, kinda tough not knowing when you’re going to play.”

It’s the start of the Cyclones final two series, both away from Cap Timm Field. After this series, Iowa State will battle another in-state rival, the University of Iowa, in Iowa City next weekend.