Iowa State was able to find some rhythm on offense and got its first conference win of the season with a 2-0 victory over Kansas on Sunday afternoon at the ISU Soccer Complex.

The win came in the wake of losing a tough game 2-1 in Sioux Falls, S.D., against South Dakota State on Friday night. In the game Friday, Iowa State controlled nearly every aspect of the game, but could not overcome a two-goal deficit that was reached halfway through the first half.

“It was really tough to lose that game because we outworked them, we outshot them, we worked hard, but we just couldn’t get the finish we wanted,” said ISU freshman midfielder Emily Goldstein.

South Dakota State scored off a penalty kick and off a header after a corner kick.

ISU sophomore Megan Long scored the lone goal for the Cyclones in the game. The Cyclones only allowed South Dakota State two shots on goal, but both found their way past keeper Maddie Jobe.

Sunday, however, was a completely different story. The first half played out Iowa State’s strength of slowing down the pace of the game and finding open shots off the pass. Iowa State got off two shots on goal in the half, while limiting Kansas to one.

Late in the first half, junior defender Emily Hejlik went down with an ankle injury, forcing coach Wendy Dillinger to make a few changes and moved senior co-captain Jordan Bishop to defender.

To start the second half, Dillinger made a switch at goalkeeper putting senior Ashley Costanzo in and removing the freshman Jobe. Dillinger said she made the move because Costanzo played well in practice this past week. Costanzo played a solid half with one save and no goals allowed.

The Cyclones came out strong in the second half and put the first goal up on the scoreboard during the 48th minute on a goal from freshman defender Jessica Stewart assisted by freshman forward Jennifer Dominguez.

The goal happened mostly due to a mistake by the Kansas goalkeeper trying to clear the ball out of the box when it hit off the side of her foot and deflected to Dominguez.

“I just kept going after it and crossed it into the box, and luckily Jessie Stewart was there to put it in,” Dominguez said.

In the 58th minute, the Cyclones scored again off the foot of Goldstein bouncing it off a Kansas defender and into the goal.

From that point on, the Cyclones never looked back and went on to a 2-0 victory and an important Big 12 Conference win.

“We talked about how important this was for us,” Dillinger said. “We needed to come out of this with three points to start the conference season.”

The Cyclones were in desperate need of a big confidence booster and what better way to do it than to get an early conference win.

“This was a huge win for us because it shows the Big 12 that we are a team that is coming into this conference, and we want to make it to the Big 12 Tournament and that we’re not just going to be a doormat,” Goldstein said.

With the loss, Kansas moved to 4-6-0 and left wondering what went wrong in this game.

“We caused a lot of our own problems today,” said Kansas assistant coach Kelly Miller. “Our style of soccer is to put the ball on the deck, and we just didn’t connect passes, we caused a lot of problems for us.”

The win moved the Cyclones to 6-3-2 for the season and 1-0-0 in conference play. The Cyclones will resume action next Friday with a matchup against Oklahoma at home.