Coming into Friday’s game against Missouri, the Cyclones didn’t have much to play for.

They had been eliminated from postseason play, and this was their last game of the season. Despite all of this, Iowa State still found a way to stay motivated and shut out the Tigers 5-0.

“We knew this was our last game,” said ISU freshman Emily Goldstein. “We put ourselves in a hole, so we couldn’t get to the Big 12’s, but we just put aside everything, and we played for each other and especially the seniors.”

Goldstein, who led the Cyclones in points this season, put an exclamation point on her season’s stats, scoring a goal and grabbing three assists. The entire game was a perfect recap of the season for the freshmen, on the whole.

In Big 12 games this season, only freshmen scored for the Cyclones, and Friday night was the same story. Each of the five goals scored in the game were from five different players: Caitlin Graboski, Theresa Kucera, Goldstein, Brittany Morgan and Emily Nowka.

“We put a lot of pressure on them from the word ‘go,'” said coach Wendy Dillinger. “They knew coming in what the expectations would be. They knew they were brought here to elevate the program.”

Elevate the program is exactly what the freshmen did. For the first time since she got here in 2008, Dillinger won three Big 12 games, and the win on Friday was the largest margin of victory — five — over Big 12 opponents in the program’s history. The Cyclones registered 19 points in the game — five goals and nine assists — all of which were recorded by freshmen.

“I was frustrated at times because it was up and down, and we hadn’t won as many games as I would’ve liked,” Graboski said of the season. “But I think we are rebuilding this program, and I think in years to come, we’re going to be up there.”

Graboski got the scoring started early for the Cyclones on Friday with a lengthy goal in the third minute of the game. The goal opened the flood gates for the Cyclones, which led to more opportunities on offense.

“That just completely turned the game around,” Goldstein said. “Mizzou is a good team. They come out every game for the first 10 minutes where they always get their goals, so it was huge for us to come out not slow and get that goal.”

After a goal by Morgan, the Cyclones took a 2-0 lead into the locker room at halftime. To start the second half, Missouri moved its back line up over the half line to have more players in the offensive zone. That move came back to haunt them.

Due to the holes on defense, the Cyclones kept pounding shots at the Missouri keeper on the counter-attack.

“They had chances, but we were able to diffuse it and turn around and counter and score,” Goldstein said.

In the 80th minute, Missouri made a mistake on the offensive end and Iowa State’s Margaret Powers got the ball, passed it over the Tiger back line and Kucera received the ball at midfield all alone. Kucera drove the ball down and scored on the one-on-one against the keeper. Two minutes later, Nowka scored to seal the 5-0 win.

As time expired, senior Ashley Costanzo led the Cyclones’ bench to pile on top of fellow senior Jordan Bishop on the field.

“I’m happy that we were able to send Jordan and Ashley out,” Dillinger said. “[The team] worked very hard, and we’ve been in some close games, so to end it with that kind of outburst on offense was huge.”