A road trip to face Texas A&M ended with the Cyclone softball team going 0-2, despite showing substantial improvement from the first game in the second.

“The best thing from the weekend is that I thought we played really well in that second game. I thought we played well enough to win,” said ISU coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler. “I thought we competed a lot better. [Saturday] things just didn’t go our way and it got a little out of hand. It was just one of those game where you have to move on from it and learn from it.”

The Cyclones had their worst statistical offensive game of the season Saturday.

An 8-0 Aggie victory ended with Iowa State registering just one hit on 19 at-bats.

Texas A&M pitcher Melissa Dumezich stifled would-be hitters for the Cyclones all game with her lethal rise-ball pitch.

“It wasn’t quite a strike, but it looked like a strike when it was coming in. It looks like what we call a meat ball in softball terms, which is a pitch that should go really far when you hit it,” Cyclone first baseman Erica Miller said. “We kept swinging at it early in the count, and then she struck us out with one of her strike pitches. We just didn’t make adjustments quick enough.”

The Cyclones put up more of a fight Sunday before a late-inning rally fell short, 7-5.

“After Saturday, I think they just felt embarrassed. They know they are a much better team than what they showed in the first game and they wanted to prove it,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said.

Catcher Amandine Habben hit the first home run of her career Sunday, a solo shot in the sixth that closed the gap to 5-3.

“We just wanted to come out and show that we belong in the Big 12 and that we can play with them,” Habben said.

With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Rhiannon Kliesing hit a two-run homer off of Cyclone pitcher Rachel Zabriskie that gave the Aggies a 7-3 lead with one inning to play.

Infielder Dalyn Varela, who had a big game for the Cyclones, going 2-for-3 at the plate with three RBIs, hit a last-gasp two-run homer in the seventh, but that would be last time the Cyclones got on the board.

The Cyclones’ next opponent will be the Northern Iowa Panthers at 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Southwest Athletic Complex in Ames.