Pitcher Rachel Zabriskie and the Cyclones came up one out short of Texas A&M on Saturday in a 4-2 extra-inning loss.

Iowa State took a 2-1 lead into the top of the seventh and Zabriskie was able to retire the first two batters of the inning before working Aggie catcher Meagan May to a 2-2 count.

In a twist of fate, May promptly deposited the next pitch over the right-field wall. This tied the game at two and seemingly sucked the life out of Iowa State as the Aggies would go on to steal the game in extra innings.

With the count at 2-2, Zabriskie and pitching coach Gary Hines had a discussion on the mound about what to do with May, one of the Aggies’ more potent hitters.

“[Hines] probably thinks he made the wrong decision, but there really wasn’t a right decision to make,” Zabriskie said. “If we walked her and put her on base and the next girl comes up and hits a home run, then they’re ahead. She did a great job on the change up; she stayed back and hit it over the fence.”

Coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler always backs up her pitchers’ decisions of wanting to go after a batter in the tough situations.

Zabriskie had kept the Aggies off the board up until the top of the sixth inning and felt as if she was pitching well enough for Iowa State to hold off Texas A&M.

“We made a choice to throw to the kid and she hit it out of the park,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. “It is what it is. I have complete faith in Rachel, and if she wants to throw to a kid then I’m going to stand right behind her and say ‘All right, I’m ready.’”

While the Cyclones failed to produce runs at the rate they did in their previous victory against Nebraska, one of the bright spots was senior third baseman Courtney Wray, who hit two singles and then reached first base again on an error.

Wray was coming off a slump, so she looked to simplify her approach at the plate.

“When you get into slumps, you have to go back to keeping it simple,” Wray said. “I’m getting into the mindset where, if I see a strike, I’m going to swing as hard as I can. You have to go back to the basics because you can’t play mind games with yourself at this level.

Despite the final outcome, Gemeinhardt-Cesler felt there were still positives that could be taken away from the defeat and applied toward the second game of the series Sunday.

“The initial feeling you have after a loss like that — you’re mad, you’re upset; all the players are,” Gemeinhardt-Cesler said. “For the coaching staff, the same thing — but if you look back and you really start to think, we did a lot of good things in the game to put us in position to win and that’s why it feels like such a kick in the face.