Iowa State came into Sunday afternoon’s game against Texas needing a win.

The team fell short for its sixth consecutive conference loss, mainly because the team didn’t capitalize on its few opportunities.

“When we don’t score when we have great chances and we give up unforced fouls, you can’t win,” said coach Wendy Dillinger in a statement after Sunday’s game. “It’s frustrating when our players who shouldn’t be giving up fouls do, and that’s why we lost the game today.”

The Cyclones put the pressure on Texas early Sunday, with a corner kick by freshman midfielder Emily Goldstein in the first minute of the game. Another corner in the 15th minute by freshman forward Brittany Morgan would have found the back of the net if Longhorn keeper Alexa Gaul hadn’t punched it out.

Texas scored the first goal of the game in the 19th minute, when junior midfielder Amanda Lisberger picked up a loose ball and put it past Cyclone freshman keeper Maddie Jobe for the early lead.

Junior co-captain Mary Kate McLaughlin was injured on the following play and would not return until the second half.

“My hip broke my fall and it ended up bruising it and it was pretty sore,” McLaughlin said.

She said she would have returned before halftime, but NCAA rules state if a player is subbed out in the first half, she cannot return until the second half.

Iowa State had another chance to score in the 23rd minute, when sophomore forward Amanda Cacciatore played a cross pass to freshman forward Jennifer Dominguez, who then banked the ball off her chest toward the goal but Gaul made a diving save to stop it.

Freshman midfielder Theresa Kucera gave the offense some momentum late in the first half when she capitalized off a failed attempt to clear the ball by Gaul and tied the game up with a goal to Gaul’s left in the 41st minute.

“I went in and asked for it and Suzy [Potterveld] was doing a good job of pressuring the ball, and then they dropped it back to their keeper and their keeper mis-hit it, so I got it and just put it in the corner,” Kucera said.

The late goal gave the Cyclones some momentum, but their struggles capitalizing off of goal-scoring opportunities continued in the second half.

“It helped us, but it just seems like we’ve been coming up short, coming up short, coming up short,” Kucera said. “Our defense is doing well, we just need to take advantage of our opportunities [and] get it in goal. We out-shot them today, we just need to put them away.”

McLaughlin started the second half for the Cyclones, and said the injury was not a factor in her second-half play.

Iowa State continued to keep the pressure up with an early shot wide by sophomore midfielder Kelsey Calvert and a corner kick by Cacciatore that was played back into the box, but McLaughlin missed the header.

In the 72nd minute, Goldstein put a free kick just in front of the goal, but no one was able to get to it and the Cyclones’ missed another chance.

Ten minutes later, Texas got inside the box and Jobe stepped up to stop the attacker from scoring and Iowa State’s defense kept the ball out of the net while Jobe got back.

“I saw the ball coming in and I knew it was bouncing so she wasn’t going to have a clean touch on it,” Jobe said.  “I went out and I didn’t get the ball, which I needed to get, but I stopped the play and let my defenders get back, so I thought that was the positives out of it.”

Iowa State had another scoring possibility a minute later, when junior co-captain Emily Hejlik passed to Cacciatore who shot it, but Gaul made a diving save to preserve the 1-1 tie.

Texas broke the tie just a minute later in the 84th minute, when junior midfielder Kylie Doniak played a free kick into the box and junior midfielder Lucy Keith scored on the header.

“It always feels great to get a goal like that so late in the game, and we knew we just have to buckle down, play smart, and keep them from scoring the last few minutes,” Keith said.

Senior co-captain Jordan Bishop created a late opportunity to score when she played a corner kick into the box with four minutes remaining and the ball got back to Cacciatore, who missed the goal by inches as the ball hit the side post.

The loss was especially tough for the Cyclones as they lost in the final minutes on Friday, too, but in overtime.

“It’s awful. It’s a terrible feeling and it’s a lot of work with nothing to show for it really,” McLaughlin said. “We come out on here on Friday night, we put in a good effort, and today we put in a decent effort but we’re losing. It’s not good enough, and that’s a hard thing to wrap your head around.”

Jobe noted that soccer is one sport that can be decided by one defensive lapse, which the Cyclones keep to seem making at inopportune times.

“You can dominate the field and can stop defending for 10 seconds and that’s what happens,” Jobe said.

Taking advantage of opportunities is one thing the Cyclones say they will have to work on if they want to advance to the Big 12 Tournament.

“We just have to practice more and we have to take advantage of our opportunities,” Kucera said. “You only get a limited amount of opportunities a game, you just have to put them away.”

The Cyclones travel to Texas next weekend to take on Texas Tech on Friday night and Baylor on Sunday afternoon.